The Mackintosh Treasury: Vol. 4

Having, in our last paper, endeavored to clear away any difficulty arising from the misuse of the precious doctrine of election, and to she\v the reader, " whosoever" he be, that there is no hindrance whatever to his full and hearty acceptance of God's free gift, even the gift of His only begotten Son; it now only remains for us to consider the result, in every case, of this acceptance, as set forth in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Here, then, we have the result, in the case of every one who simply believes in Jesus. He shall never perish, but shall possess everlasting life. But who can attempt to unfold all that is included in this word, "perish?" "What mortal tongue can set forth the horrors of the lake that burneth with lire and brimstone, " where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched?" We believe, assuredly, that none but the One who used the word, in speaking to Nicodemus, can fully expound it to any one, but still we feel called upon, as the conductors of " Things New and Old," to bear our decided and unequivocal testimony to the solemn truth of Eternal Punishment. We have, occasionally, referred to this subject in our "Correspondence;" but we believe it demands from us a formal notice; and, inasmuch as the word "perish" occurs in the passage winch has, for some months, been occupying our thoughts, we cannot do better than call the reader's attention to it.

It is a serious and melancholy fact that the enemy of souls and of the truth of God is leading thousands, both in Europe and America, to call in question the momentous fact of the everlasting punishment of the wicked. This he does on various grounds, and by various arguments, adapted to the habits of thought, and moral condition, and intellectual stand-point of individuals. Some he seeks to persuade that God is too kind to send any one to a place of torment. It is contrary to His benevolent mind and His beneficent nature to inflict pain on any of His creatures.

Now, to all who stand, or affect to stand, upon this ground of argument, we would suggest the important inquiry, " What is to be done with the sins of those who die impenitent and unbelieving?" Whatever force there may be in the idea that God is too kind to send sinners to hell, there is equal force in the idea that He is too holy to let sin into heaven. He is " of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity." (Hab. 1:13.) God and evil cannot dwell together. This is plain. How, then, is the case to be met? If God cannot let sin into heaven, what is to be done with the sinner who dies in his sins? He must perish. But what does this mean? Does it mean annihilation, that is, the utter extinction or blotting out of the very existence of body and soul? Nay, reader, this cannot be. Many would like this, no doubt. " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," would alas! suit many thousands of the sons and daughters of pleasure who think only of the present moment, and who roll sin as a sweet morsel under their tongue. There are millions, on the surface of the globe, who are bartering their eternal happiness for a few hours of guilty pleasure, and the crafty foe of mankind seeks to persuade such that there is no such place as hell, no such thing as the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; and, in order to obtain a footing for tins fatal suggestion, he bases it upon the plausible and imposing notion of the kindness of God.

Reader, do not believe the arch-deceiver. Remember, God is holy. He cannot let sin into His presence. If you die in your sins, you must perish, and this word " perish" involves, according to the clear testimony of holy scripture, eternal misery and torment in hell. Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith, in His solemn description of the judgment of the nations: " Then shall the king say also to them on his left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matt. 25:41.) And, while you hearken to these awfully solemn accents, remember that the word translated " everlasting " occurs seventy times in the New Testament, and is applied as follows: "everlasting fire"—"eternal life"—"everlasting punishment"—" eternal damnation"—" everlasting habitations"—"the everlasting God"—"eternal weight of glory"—" everlasting destruction "—" everlasting consolation "—"eternal glory"—" eternal salvation"—" eternal judgment" "eternal redemption"—"the eternal Spirit"—"eternal inheritance"—" everlasting kingdom"—" eternal fire."

Now, we ask any candid, thoughtful person, upon what principle can a word be said to mean eternal, when applied to the Holy Ghost or to God, and only temporary, when applied to hell fire or the punishment of the wicked? If it means eternal, in the one case, why not also in the other? We have just glanced at a Greek Concordance, and we should like to ask, would it be right to mark off some half-dozen passages in which the word "· everlasting" occurs, and write opposite to each, these words, " everlasting here only means for a time?" The very thought is monstrous. It would be a daring and blasphemous insult offered to the Volume of Inspiration. No, reader, be assured of it, you cannot touch the word " everlasting" in one case, without touching it also in all the seventy cases in which it occurs. It is a dangerous thing to tamper with the word of the Living God. It is infinitely better to bow down under its holy authority. It is worse than useless to seek to avoid the plain meaning and solemn force of that word " perish" as applied to the immortal soul of man. It involves, beyond all question, the awful—the ineffably awful reality of burning forever in the flames of hell. This is what scripture means by " perishing." The votary of pleasure, or the lover of money, may seek to forget this. They may seek to drown all thought of it in the glass or in the busy mart. The sentimentalist may rave about the divine benevolence; the skeptic may reason about the possibility of eternal fire; but we are intensely anxious that the reader should rise from the study of this paper with the firm and deeply wrought conclusion and hearty belief that the punishment of all who die in their sins will be eternal in hell, as surely as the blessedness of all who die in the faith of Christ will be eternal in the heavens. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost would, most assuredly, have used a different word when speaking of the former, from that winch He applies to the latter. This, we conceive, is beyond all question.

But there is another objection urged against the doctrine of eternal punishment. It is frequently said, " How can we suppose that God would inflict eternal punishment as a penalty for a few short years of sin?" We reply, it is beginning at the wrong end to argue in this way. It is not a question of time, as viewed from man's stand-point, but of the gravity of sin in itself, as looked at from God's stand-point. And how is this question to be solved? Only by looking at the cross. If you want to know what sin is in God's sight, you must look at what it cost Him to put it away. It is by the standard of Christ's infinite sacrifice, and by that alone, that you can rightly measure sin. Men may compare their few years with God's eternity; the may compare their short span of life with that boundless eternity that stretches beyond; they may seek to put a few years of sin into one scale, and an eternity of woe and torment into the other, and thus attempt to reach a just conclusion: but it will never do to argue thus. The question is, did it require an infinite atonement to put away sin? If so, the punishment of sin must be eternal. If nothing short of an infinite sacrifice could deliver from the consequences of sin, those consequences must he eternal.

In a word, then, we must look at sin from God's point of view, and measure it by His standard, else we shall never have a just sense of what it is or what it deserves. It is the height of folly for men to attempt to lay down a rule as to the amount or duration of the punishment due to sin. God alone can settle this. And, after all, what was it that produced all the misery and wretchedness, the sickness and sorrow, the death and desolation of well nigh six thousand years? Just one act of disobedience—the eating of a little fruit. Can man explain this? Can human reason explain how one act produced such an overwhelming amount of misery? It cannot. Well, then, if it cannot do this, how can it be trusted when it attempts to decide the question as to what is due to sin? Woe be to all those who commit themselves to its guidance in this most momentous point!

All! reader, you must see that God alone can estimate sin and its just deserts, and He alone can tell us all about it. And has He not done so? Yes, verily, He has measured sin in the cross of His Son, and there, too, He has set forth, in the most impressive manner, what it deserves. What, think you, must that be that caused the bitter cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" If God forsook His only begotten Son, when He was made sin, must not sin deserve infinite and everlasting punishment? We believe the conclusion is unavoidable. We consider that the infinite nature of the atonement proves, unanswerably, the doctrine of eternal punishment. That peerless and precious sacrifice is at once the foundation of our eternal life, and of our deliverance from eternal death. It delivers from eternal wrath and introduces to eternal glory. It saves from the endless misery of hell, and procures for us the endless bliss, of heaven. Thus whatever side of the cross we look at, or from whatever side we view it, we see eternity stamped upon it. If we view it from the gloomy depths of hell, or from the sunny heights of heaven, we see it to be the same infinite, eternal, divine reality. It is by the cross we must measure both the blessedness of heaven and. the misery of hell. Those who put their trust in that blessed One who died on the cross, obtain everlasting life and felicity. Those who reject Him, must sink into endless perdition.

"We do not, by any means, pretend to handle this great question theologically, or to adduce all the arguments that might be advanced in defense of the doctrine of eternal punishment; but there is one further consideration which we must suggest to the reader, as tending to lead him to a. sound conclusion, and that is the immortality of the soul. " God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." The fall of man in nowise touched the question of the soul's immortality. If, therefore, the soul is immortal, annihilation is impossible. The soul must live forever. Overwhelming thought! Forever! Forever! Forever! The whole moral being sinks under the awful magnitude of the thought. It surpasses all conception and baffles all mental calculation. Human arithmetic can only deal with the finite. It has no figures by which to represent a never ending eternity. But the writer and the reader must live throughout eternity, either in that bright and blessed world above, or in that terrible place where hope can never come.

May God's Spirit impress our hearts more and more with the solemnity of eternity and of immortal souls going down into hell. We are deplorably deficient in feeling as to these weighty realities. We are daily thrown in contact with people, we buy and sell and carry on intercourse in various ways with those who must live forever, and yet how rarely do we seek occasion to press upon them the awfulness of eternity and the appalling condition of all who die without a personal interest in the blood of Christ.

Reader, let us ask God to make us more earnest, more solemn, more faithful, more zealous in pleading with souls, in warning others to flee from the wrath to come. We want to live more in the light of eternity, and then we shall be better able to deal with others.

We shall, if tire Lord permit, devote our next paper to the consideration of " everlasting life."

(To be continued, if the Lord will.)

Glad Tidings: Part 3

It may, here, be needful to meet a difficulty which often occurs to anxious souls, in reference to the question of appropriation. Thousands have been harassed and perplexed by this question, at some stage or other of their spiritual history; and it is not improbable that many who shall read these pages, may be glad of a few words on the subject. Many may feel disposed to ask, " How am I to know that tins love, and the gift of love, are intended for me? What warrant have I for believing that ' everlasting life' is for me? I know the plan of salvation; I believe in the all-sufficiency of the atonement of Christ for the forgiveness and justification of all who truly believe. I am convinced of the truth of all that the Bible declares. I believe we ax all sinners, and, moreover, that we can do nothing to save ourselves—that we need to be washed in the blood of Jesus, and to be taught and led by the Holy Ghost, ere we can please God here, and dwell with Him hereafter. All this I fully believe, and yet I have no assurance that I am saved, and I want to know on what authority I am to believe that my sins are forgiven and that I have everlasting life."

If the foregoing be, in any measure, the language of the reader—if it be, at all, the expression of his difficulty, we would, in the first place, call his attention to two words which occur in our precious text (John 3:16), namely, " world" and " whosoever." It seems utterly impossible for anyone to refuse the application of these two words. For what, let us ask, is the meaning of the term " world?" What does it embrace? or, rather, What does it not embrace? When our Lord declares that " God so loved the world," on what ground can the reader exclude himself from the range, scope, and application of this divine love? On no ground whatever, unless he can show that he alone belongs not to the world, but to some other sphere of being. If it were declared that " the world" is hopelessly condemned, could any one making a part of that world avoid the application of the sentence? Could he exclude Mm-self from it? Impossible. How then can he, why should he, exclude himself, when it is a question of God's free love, and of salvation by Christ Jesus?

But, further, we would ask, what is the meaning—what the force—of the familiar word, " whosoever?" Assuredly, it means " anybody;" and if anybody, why not the reader? It is infinitely better, infinitely surer, and more satisfactory to find the word " whosoever" in the gospel than to find my own name there, inasmuch as there may be a thousand persons in the world of the same name; but " whosoever" applies to me as distinctly as though I were the only sinner on the face of the earth.

Thus, then, the very words of the gospel message—the very terms used to set forth the glad tidings, are such as leave no possible ground for a difficulty as to their application. If we listen to our Lord, in the clays of His flesh, we hear such words as these, " God so loved the world that He gave Ms only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life." Again, if we listen to Him after His resurrection, we hear these words, " Go ye unto all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16) And, lastly, if we listen to the voice of the Holy Ghost sent from a risen, ascended, and glorified Lord, we hear such words as these, " The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Rom. 10:12, 13.

In all the above cited passages, we have two terms used, one general, the other particular, and both together so presenting the message of salvation, as to leave no room whatever for any one to refuse its application. If " all the world" is the scope, and " every creature" is the object of the precious gospel of Christ, then on what ground can any one exclude himself? Where is there authority for any sinner out of hell to say that the glad tidings of salvation are not for him? There is none. Salvation is as free as the air we breathe—free as the dewdrops that refresh the earth—free as the sunbeams that shine upon our pathway; and if any attempt to limit its application, they are neither in harmony with the mind of Christ, nor in sympathy with the heart of God.

But it may be that some of our readers would, at this stage of the subject, feel disposed to ask us, " How do you dispose of the question of election?" We reply, " Very simply, by leaving it where God has placed it, namely, as a landmark in the inheritance of the spiritual Israel, and not as a stumbling block in the pathway of the anxious enquirer." This we believe to be the true way of dealing with the deeply important doctrine of election. The more we ponder the subject, the more thoroughly are we convinced that it is a mistake on the part of the evangelist or preacher of the gospel to qualify his message, hamper his subject, or perplex his hearers, by the doctrine of election or predestination. He has to do with lost sinners in the discharge of his blessed ministry. He meets men where they are, on the broad ground of our common ruin, our common guilt, our common condemnation. He meets them with a message of full, free, present, personal, and eternal salvation—a message which comes fresh, fervent, and glowing from-the very bosom of God. His ministry is, as the Holy Ghost declares in 2 Cor. 5, " a ministry of reconciliation," the glorious characteristics of which are these, " God in Christ"—" reconciling the world unto himself'—" not imputing their trespasses;" and the marvelous foundation of which is, that God has made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God Μ Him.

Does this trench, in the smallest degree, upon the blessed and clearly established truth of election? By no means. It leaves it in all its integrity and in its full value, as a grand fundamental truth of holy scripture, exactly where God has placed it, not as a preliminary question to be settled ere the sinner comes to Jesus; but as a most precious consolation and encouragement to Him when he has come. This makes all the difference. If the sinner be called upon to settle, beforehand, the question of his election, how is he to set about it? Whither is he to turn for a solution? Where shall he find a divine warrant for believing that he is one of the elect? Can he find a single line of scripture on which to base his faith as to his election? He cannot. He can find scores of passages declaring him to be lost, guilty, and undone—scores of passages to assure him of his total inability to do aught in the matter of his own salvation—hundreds of passages unfolding the free love of God, the value and efficacy of the atonement of Christ, and assuring him of a hearty welcome to come, just as he is, and make his own of the precious fruits of God's salvation. But if it be needful for him to settle the prior question of his predestination and election, then is his case hopeless, and he must, in so far as he is in earnest, be plunged in black despair.

And is it not thus with thousands, at tins moment, through the misapplication of the doctrine of election? We fully believe it is; and hence our anxiety to help our readers by setting the matter in what we judge to be the true light before their minds. We believe it to be of the utmost importance for the anxious enquirer to know that the standpoint from which he is called to view the cross of Christ, is not the standpoint of election, but of conscious ruin. The grace of God meets him as a lost, dead, guilty sinner, not as an elect one. This is an unspeakable mercy, inasmuch as he knows he is the former, but cannot know that he is the latter until the gospel has come to him in power.

"Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." How did he know it? "Because our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance." (1 Thess. 1:4, 5.) Paul preached to the Thessalonians as lost sinners, and when the gospel had laid hold of them as lost, he could write to them as elect.

This puts election in its right place. If the reader will turn for a moment to Acts 17 he will there see how Paul discharged his business, as an evangelist, amongst the Thessalonians. "Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that tins Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ." So also in that splendid passage at the opening of 1 Cor. 15, " Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures." Ver. 1-4.

From this passage, and many others which might be quoted, we learn that the apostle preached not merely a doctrine, but a person. He did not preach election. He taught it to saints, but never preached it to sinners. This should be the evangelist's model, at all times. We never once find the apostles preaching election. They preached Christ—they unfolded the goodness of God—His loving-kindness—His tender mercy—His pardoning love—His gracious readiness to receive all who came in then true character and condition as lost sinners. Such was their mode of preaching, or rather, such was the mode of the Holy Ghost in them, and such too was the mode of the blessed Master Himself. " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and / will give you rest." " If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." "Him that cometh to me I will in nowise cast out." Matt. 11, John 6; 7

Here are no stumbling-blocks in the way of anxious enquirers—no preliminary questions to be settled—no conditions to be fulfilled—no theological difficulties to be solved. No; the sinner is met on Ms own ground—met as he is—met just now. There is rest for the weary, drink for the thirsty, life for the dead, pardon for the guilty, salvation for the lost. Do these free invitations touch the doctrine of election? Assuredly not. And what is more, the doctrine of election does not touch them. In other words, a full and free gospel leaves perfectly untouched the grand and all-important truth of election: and the truth of election, in its proper place, leaves the gospel of the grace of God on its own broad and blessed base, and in all its divine length, breadth, and fullness. The gospel meets us as lost, and saves us; and then, when we know ourselves as saved, the precious doctrine of election comes in to establish us in the fact that we can never be lost. It never was the purpose of God that poor anxious souls should be harassed with theological questions or points of doctrine. No; blessed forever be His name, it is His gracious desire that the healing balm of His pardoning love, and the cleansing efficacy of the atoning blood of Jesus, should be applied to the spiritual wounds of every sin-sick soul. And as to the doctrines of predestination and election, He has unfolded them in His word to comfort His saints, not to perplex poor sinners. They shine like precious gems on the page of inspiration, but they were never intended to lie as stumbling-blocks in the way of earnest seekers after life and peace. They are deposited in the hands of the teacher to be unfolded in the bosom of the family of God; but they are not intended for the evangelist, whose blessed mission is to the highways and hedges of a lost world. They are designed to feed and comfort the children, not to scare and stumble the sinner. We would say, and that with real earnestness, to all evangelists, " Do not hamper your preaching with theological questions of any sort or description. Preach Christ. Unfold the deep and everlasting love of a Savior God. Seek to bring the guilty conscience-smitten sinner into the very presence of a pardoning God. Thunder, if you please, if so led, at the conscience—thunder loud at sin—thunder forth the dread realities of the great white throne, the lake of fire, and everlasting torment; but see that you aim at bringing the guilty stricken conscience to rest in the atoning virtues of the blood of Christ. Then you can hand over the fruits of your ministry to the divinely qualified teacher to be instructed in the deeper mysteries of the faith of Christ. You may rest assured that the faithful discharge of your duty as an evangelist will never lead you to trespass on the domain of sound theology."

And, to the anxious enquirer, we would say, with equal earnestness, "Let nothing stand in your way in coming, this moment, to Jesus. Let theology speak as it may, you are to listen to the voice of Jesus, who says,' Come unto me.' Be assured there is no hindrance, no difficulty, no hitch, no question, no condition. You are a lost sinner, and Jesus is a full Savior. Put your trust in Him, and you are saved forever. Believe in Him, and you will know your place amongst the 'elect of God' who are 'predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son.' Bring your sins to Jesus and He will pardon them, cancel them by His blood, and clothe you in a spotless robe of divine righteousness. May God's Spirit lead you, now, to cast yourself simply and entirely upon that precious all-sufficient Savior!"

We shall close this paper with a very brief notice of three distinct evils resulting from a wrong application of the doctrine of election, namely, I. The discouragement of really earnest souls who ought to be helped on, in every possible way. If such persons are repulsed by the question of election, the result must be disastrous in the extreme. If they are told that the glad tidings of salvation are only for the elect—that Christ died only for such, and hence, only such can be saved—that unless they are elect they have no right to apply to themselves the benefits of the death of Christ. If, in short, they are turned from Jesus to theology—from the heart of a loving pardoning God to the cold and withering dogmas of systematic divinity, it is impossible to say where they may end; they may take refuge either in superstition, on the one hand, or in infidelity, on the other. They may end in high Church, broad Church, or no Church at all. What they really want is Christ, the living, loving, precious, all-sufficient Christ of God. He is the true food for anxious souls.

II. But, in the second place, careless souls are rendered more careless still by a false application of the doctrine of election. Such persons when pressed as to their state and prospects, will fold their arms and say, "You know I cannot believe unless God gives me the power. If I am one of the elect I must be saved; if not I cannot. I can do nothing, but must wait God's time." All this false and flimsy reasoning should be exposed and demolished. It wall not stand, for a moment, in the light of the judgment-seat of Christ. Each one will learn there that election furnished no excuse whatever, inasmuch as it never was set up, by God, as a barrier to the sinner's salvation. The word is, " Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." The very same form of speech and style of language which removes the stumbling-block from the feet of the anxious enquirer, snatches the plea from the lips of the careless rejecter. No one is shut out. All are invited. There is neither a barrier on the one hand, nor a plea on the other. All are made welcome; but all are responsible. Hence, if any one presumes to excuse himself for refusing God's salvation, which is as clear as a sunbeam, by urging God's decrees, which are entirely hidden, he will find himself fatally mistaken.

III. And, now, in the third and last place, we have frequently seen, with real sorrow of heart, the earnest, loving, large-hearted evangelist damped and crippled by a false application of the truth of election. This should be most carefully avoided. We hold that it is not the business of the evangelist to preach election. If he is rightly instructed, he will hold it; but, if he is rightly directed, he will not preach it.

In a word, then, the precious doctrine of election is not to be a stumbling-block to the anxious—a plea for the careless—a damper to the fervent evangelist. May God's Spirit give us to feel the adjusting power of truth!

(To 6« continued, if the Lord will.)

Glad Tidings: Part 1

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

There are some passages of holy scripture which seem to contain, in a line or two, an entire volume of most precious truth. The verse which we have just penned is one of such. It is part of our Lord's memorable discourse with Nicodemus, and it embodies, in a condensed form, a very full statement of gospel truth—a statement which may well be termed " Glad Tidings."

It should ever be borne in mind, both by preachers and those to whom they preach, that one grand object of the gospel is to bring God and the sinner together in such a way as to secure the sinner's eternal salvation. It reveals a Savior-God to a lost man. In other words, it presents God to the sinner in the very character that meets the sinner's need. A Savior is precisely what suits the lost, just as a life-boat suits a drowning man, or a physician a sick man, or bread a hungry man. They are fitted the one for the other; and when God, as a Savior, and man, as a lost sinner, meet together, the whole question is settled forever. The sinner is saved, because God is a Savior. He is saved according to the perfection which belongs to God, in every character He wears, in every office He fills, in every relationship He sustains. To raise a question as to the full and everlasting salvation of a believing sold, is to deny that God is a Savior. So it is in reference to justification. God has revealed Himself as a Justifier; and, hence, the believer is justified according to the perfection which attaches to God in that character. If a single flaw could be detected in the title of the very weakest believer, it would be a dishonor to God as a Justifier. Grant me but this, that God is my Justifier, and I argue, in the face of every opposer and every accuser, that I am, and must be, perfectly justified.

And, on the same principle, grant me but this, that God has revealed Himself as a Savior, and I argue, with unclouded confidence and holy boldness, that I am, and must be, perfectly saved. It does not rest upon aught in me, but simply and entirely upon God's revelation of Himself. I know He is perfect, in everything; and, therefore, perfect as my Savior. Hence, I am perfectly saved, inasmuch as tire glory of God is involved in my salvation. " There is no God else beside me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me." What then? "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else." (Isa. 45:21, 22.) One believing look from a lost sinner to a just God and a Savior, secures eternal salvation. " Look" How simple! It is not " Work"—" Do"—" Pray"—" Feel"—no; it is simply " Look." And what then? Salvation—everlasting life. It must be so, because God is a Savior; and the precious little monosyllable " Look" fully implies all this, inasmuch as it expresses the fact that the salvation which I want is found in the One to whom I look. It is all there, ready for me, and one look secures it—secures it forever—secures it for me. It is not a thing of today or to-morrow; it is an eternal reality. The bulwarks of salvation behind which the believer retreats have been erected by God Himself—the Savior-God, on the sure foundation of Christ's atoning work; and no power of earth or hell can ever shake them. " Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth on him, shall not be confounded." Isa. 28:16 Pet. 2:6.

But let us now turn directly to the profound and comprehensive passage which forms the special subject of tins paper. In it, most assuredly, we listen to the voice of a Savior-God—the voice of Him who came down from heaven to reveal God in such a way as He had never been revealed before. It is a marvelously blessed fact that God has been fully revealed in tins world—revealed, so that we—the writer and the reader of these lines—may know Him, in all the reality of what He is—know Him, each for himself, with the utmost possible certainty, and have to do with Him, in all the blessed intimacy of personal communion.

Reader, think of this! Think, we beseech you, of this amazing privilege. You may know God for yourself, as your Savior, your Father, your own very God. You may have to do with Him; you may lean upon Him, cling to Him, walk with Him, live, and move, and have your being in His own most blessed presence, in the bright sunshine of His loving countenance, under His own immediate eye.

This is life and peace. It is far more than mere theology or systematic divinity. These things have their value; but, be it remembered, a man may be a profound theologian, an able divine, and yet live and die without God, and perish eternally. Solemn, awful, overwhelming thought! A man may go down to hell, into the blackness and darkness of an eternal night, with all the dogmas of theology at his fingers' ends. A man may sit in the professor's chair, stand in the pulpit, and at the desk; he may be looked up to as a great teacher and an eloquent preacher; hundreds may sit at his feet and learn, thousands may hang on his lips, and be enraptured, and, after all, he himself may descend into the pit, and spend a dismal, miserable eternity in company with the most profane and immoral.

Not so, however, with the one who knows God as He is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Such a one has gotten life eternal. " This," says Christ, " is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." (Joint xvii. 3.) It is not life eternal to know theology or divinity. A man may sit down to the study of these, as he would to study law or medicine, astronomy or geology, and, ad the while, know nothing of God, and therefore be without divine life, and perish in the end.

So also as to mere religiousness. A man may be the greatest devotee in the world. He may, most diligently, discharge all the offices, and sedulously attend upon all the ordinances of systematic religion; he may fast and pray; hear sermons and say prayers; be most devout and exemplary; and, all the while, know nothing of God in Christ; yea, he may live and die without God, and sink into hell forever. Look at Nicodemus. Where could you find a better sample of religious human nature than in him? A man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews, a master in Israel; one, moreover, who seemed to discern in the miracles of our Lord the clear proofs of His divine mission; and yet the word to him was, " Ye must be born again." We have no need, surely, to go farther than this to prove that a man may be, not only religious, but actually a guide and a teacher of others, and yet not have a single spark of divine life in his soul.

But it is not so with one who knows God in Christ. Such a one has life, and an object. He has God Himself for his priceless portion. This is divine. It lies at the very foundation of personal Christianity and true religion.

It is above and beyond everything. It is not, we repeat, mere theology, divinity, or religiousness; it is God Himself, known, trusted, and enjoyed. It is a grand, unmistakable reality. It is the soul of theology, the groundwork of divinity, the life of true religion. There is nothing in all this world like it. It is something which must be felt in order to be known. It is acquaintance with God, confidence in Him, and enjoyment of Him.

Now, it may be that the reader is disposed to ask, " How can I possess this priceless treasure? How can I know God for myself, in this living, saving, powerful manner? If it be true that without this personal knowledge of God, I must perish eternally, then how am I to obtain it? What am I to do, what am I to be, in order to know God?" The answer is, God has revealed Himself. If he had not, we may say, with decision, that nothing that we could do, nothing that we could be, nothing in us or of us could possibly make us acquainted with God. If God had not manifested Himself, we should have remained forever in ignorance of Him, and perished in our ignorance. But, seeing that He has come forth from the thick darkness, and showed Himself, we may know Him according to the truth of His own revelation, and find, in that knowledge, everlasting life, and a spring of blessedness at which our ransomed souls shall drink throughout the golden ages of eternity.

We know of nothing which so clearly and forcibly proves man's utter incompetency to do aught towards procuring life, as the fact that the possession of this life is based upon the knowledge of God; and tins knowledge of God must rest upon the revelation of God. In a word, to know God is life; to be ignorant of Him is death.

But where is He to be known? This is, in very deed, a grave question. Many a one has had to cry out, with Job, " Oh! that I knew where I might find him." Where is God to be found? Am I to look for Him in creation?

Doubtless, His hand is visible there; but ah! that will not do for me. A Creator-God will not suit a lost sinner. The hand of power will not avail for a poor guilty wretch like me. I want a heart of love. Yes, I want a heart that can love me in all my guilt and misery. Where can I find this? Shall I look into the wide domain of Providence—the widely extended sphere of God's government? Has God revealed Himself there in such a way as to meet me a poor lost one? Will Providence and government avail for one who knows himself to be a hell-deserving sinner? Clearly not. If I look at these things, I may see what will perplex and confound me. I am short-sighted and ignorant, and wholly unable to explain the ins and outs, the bearings and issues, the why and the wherefore of a single event in my own life, or in the history of this world. Am I able to explain all about the loss of The London? Can I account for the fact that a most valuable life is suddenly cut short, and an apparently useless one prolonged? There is a husband and the father of a large family: he seems perfectly indispensable to his domestic circle; and yet, all in a moment, he is cut down, and they are left in sorrow and destitution. While, on the other hand, yonder lies a poor bed-ridden creature, who has outlived all her relations, and is dependent on the parish, or on individual benevolence. She has lain there for years, a burden to some, no use to any. Can I account for this? Am I competent to interpret the voice of Providence in this deeply mysterious dispensation? Certainly not. I have nothing in or of myself wherewith to thread my way through the mazes of the labyrinth of what is called Providence. I cannot find a Savior-God there.

Well, then, shall I turn to the law—to the Mosaic economy—the Levitical ceremonial? Shall I find what I want there? Will a lawgiver, on the top of a fiery mount, wrapped in clouds and thick darkness, sending forth thunders and lightnings, or hidden behind a veil—will such a One avail for me? Alas! alas! I cannot meet Him—I cannot answer His demands nor fulfill the conditions. I am told to love Him with all my heart, with all my mind, and with all my strength; but I do not know Him. I am blind and cannot see. I am alienated from the life of God, an enemy by wicked works. Shi has blinded my mind, blunted my conscience, and hardened my heart. The devil has completely perverted my moral being, and led mo into a state of positive rebellion against God. I want to be renewed in the very source of my being, ere I can do what the law demands. How can I be thus renewed? Only by the knowledge of God. But God is not revealed in the law. Nay, He is hidden—hidden behind an impenetrable cloud, an unrent veil. Hence I cannot know Him there.

I am compeded to retire from that fiery mount, and from that unrent veil, and from the whole economy of which these were the characteristic features, the prominent objects, still crying out, " Oh! that I knew where I might find him." In a word, then, neither in creation, nor in providence, nor in the law, is God revealed as " a just God and a Savior." I see a God of power, in creation; a God of wisdom, in providence; a God of justice, in the law; a God of love, only in the face of Jesus Christ. " God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself."

2 Cor. 5:19.

To tins stupendous fact we call the reader's earnest attention; that is, if he be one who does not yet know the Lord. It is of the very last possible importance that he be clear as to this. Without it there can be nothing right. To know God is the first step. It is not merely knowing some things about God. It is not unrenewed nature turning religious, trying to do better, endeavoring to keep the law. No, reader; it is none of these things. It is God, known in the face of Jesus Christ. " For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath sinned in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." This is the deep and blessed secret of the whole matter. The reader, so far as his natural condition is concerned, is in a state of darkness. There is not so much as a single ray of spiritual light. He is, spiritually and morally, just what creation was, physically, before that sublime and commanding utterance fell from the lips of the Almighty Creator, "Let there be light." All is dark and chaotic, for " the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." 2 Cor. 4:4, 6.

Here are the two things, namely, the god of this world blinding the mind, and seeking to hinder the in shining of the precious life-giving beams of the light of God's glory; and, on the other hand, God, in His marvelous grace, shining in the heart, to give the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Thus all hinges upon the grand reality of the knowledge of God. Is there light? It is because God is known. Is there darkness? It is because God is not known. No doubt there are various measures in the experience and exhibition of this light; but there is light, because there is the knowledge of God. So also there may be various forms of darkness; some more hideous than others; but there is darkness, because God is not known. The knowledge of God is light and life. Ignorance of God is darkness and death. A man may enrich himself with all the treasures of science and literature; but if he docs not know God, he is in a dark, a primeval night. But, on the other hand, a man may be profoundly ignorant of all human learning; but if he knows God, he can walk in broad daylight.

(To be continued, if the Lord will)

Glad Tidings: Part 2

In the passage of scripture which has been engaging our attention, namely, John hi. 16, we have a very remarkable illustration of the character of the entire Gospel of John, and especially the opening chapters. It is impossible to meditate upon it without seizing this interesting fact. In it, we are introduced to God Himself, in that wondrous aspect of His character and nature, as loving the world, and giving His Son. In it, too, we find, not only the "world" as a whole, but the individual sinner, under that most satisfactory title of "whosoever." Thus God and the sinner are together—God, loving and giving; and the sinner, believing and having. It is not God judging and exacting; but God loving and giving. The former was law; the latter, grace: that was Judaism; tins, Christianity. In the one, we see God demanding obedience in order to life; in the other, we see God giving life as the only basis of obedience. In the one, we see man struggling for life, but never obtaining it; in the other, we see man receiving life as a free gift, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the contrast between the two systems—a contrast which cannot be too deeply pondered. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." John 1:17.

But let us mark the way in which this is unfolded in our text. "God so loved the world." Here we have the wide aspect of the love of God. It is not confined to any particular nation, tribe, caste, or family. It embraces the whole world. God is love; and, being so, it is not a question of the fitness or worthiness of the object of His love. It is what He is. He is love, and He cannot be anything else. It is the very energy and activity of His nature. The heart may have many a question, many an exercise as to its state and condition before God, and very right it should have them. The Spirit Himself may produce such exercises and raise such questions; but, after all, the grand truth shines forth in all its luster, "God is love." Whatever we are, whatever the world is, that is what God is; and we know that the truth as to God forms the deep and rich substratum which underlies the whole system of Christianity. The soul may pass through deep and sore conflict, under the sense of its own wretchedness; there may be many doubts and fears; many dark and heavy clouds; weeks, months, or years, may be spent under the law, in one's inward self-consciousness, and that, moreover, long after the mere intellect has yielded its assent to the principles and doctrines of evangelical religion. But, after all, we must be brought into direct personal contact with God Himself—with what He is—with His nature and character, as He has revealed Himself in the gospel. We have to acquaint ourselves with Him, and He is love.

Observe, it does not say, merely, that God is loving, but that He is love. It is not only that love is an attribute of His character, but it is the very activity of His nature. We do not read that God is justice, or holiness; He is just and He is holy; but it would not express the full and blessed truth to say that God is loving; He is much more, He is love itself. Hence, when the sinner—" whosoever" he be, it matters not—is brought to see his own total and absolute ruin, his hopeless wretchedness, his guilt and misery, the utter vanity and worthlessness of all within and around Him, that there is nothing in the whole world that can satisfy his heart, and nothing in his heart that can satisfy God, or satisfy even his own conscience, when these things are opened, in any measure, to his view, then is he met by this grand substantial truth that " God is love," and that He so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son.

Here is life and rest for the soul. Here is salvation, full, free, and everlasting, for the poor, needy, guilty, lost one—salvation, resting not upon anything in man, or of man—upon aught that he is or can he, aught that he has done, or can do, but simply upon what God is, and has done. God loves and gives, and the sinner believes and has. This is far beyond Creation, Government, or Law. In Creation, God spake and it was done. He called worlds into existence by the word of His mouth. But we hear nothing, throughout the entire record of creation, of God loving and giving.

So as to Government, we see God ruling in unsearchable wisdom, amid the armies of heaven, and among the children of men; but we cannot comprehend Him. We can only say, as to this subject, that "God moves in a mysterious way,

His wonders to perform;

He plants His footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never failing skill,.

He treasures up His bright designs,

And works His sovereign will."

Finally, as to the Law, it is, from beginning to end, a perfect system of command and prohibition—a system perfect in its action as testing man, and making manifest his entire alienation from God. "The law worketh wrath." And again, "By the law is the knowledge of sin." But what could such a system do in a world of sinners? Could it give life? Impossible. Why? Because man could not fulfill its holy requirements. "If there had been a law given which could have given life, then verily righteousness should have been by the law." But no; the law was a ministration of death and condemnation. (See 2 Cor. 3) The only effect of the law, to any one who is under it, is the pressure of death upon the soul, and of guilt and condemnation upon the conscience. It cannot possibly be otherwise with an honest soul under the law.

What, then, is needed? Simply this, the knowledge of the love of God, and of the precious gift which that love has bestowed. This is the eternal groundwork of all. Love and the gift of Love. For, be it observed, and ever remembered, that God's love could never have reached us, save through the medium of that gift. God is holy, and we are sinful. How could we come near Him? How could we dwell in His holy presence? How could sin and holiness ever abide in company? Impossible. Justice demands the condemnation of sin; and if Love wail save the sinner, it must do so at no less a cost than the gift of the only begotten Son. Darius loved Daniel, and labored hard to save him from the lions' den; but his love was powerless because of the unbending law of the Medes and Persians. He spent the night in sorrow and fasting. He could weep at the mouth of the den; but he could not save his friend. His love was not mighty to save. If he had offered himself to the lions instead of his friend, it would have been morally glorious; but he did not. His love told itself forth in unavailing tears and lamentations. The law of the Persian kingdom was more powerful than the love of the Persian king. The law, in its stem majesty, triumphed over an impotent love which had nothing but fruitless tears to bestow upon its object.

But the love of God is not like this—Eternal and universal praise to His Name! His love is mighty to save. It reigns through righteousness. How is this? Because "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." The law had declared, in words of awful solemnity, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." Was this law less stern, less majestic, less stringent than the law of the Medes and Persians? Surely not. How, then, was it to be disposed of? It was to be magnified and made honorable, vindicated and established. Not one jot or tittle of the law could ever be set aside. How, then, was the difficulty to be solved? Three things had to be done: the law had to be magnified; sin condemned; the sinner saved. How could these grand results be reached? We have the answer in two bold and vivid lines from one of our own poets,

" On Jesus' cross this record's graved,

Let sin be damned, and sinners saved."

Precious record! May many an anxious sinner read and believe it! Such was the amazing love of God that He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. His love cost Him nothing less than the Son of His bosom. When it was a question of creating worlds, it cost Him but the word of His mouth; but when it was a question of loving a world of sinners, it cost His only begotten Son. The love of God is a holy love, a righteous love, a love acting in harmony with all the attributes of His Nature, and the claims of His Throne. "Grace reigns, through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." The soul can never be set at liberty till this truth is fully laid hold of. There may be certain vague hopes in the mercy of God, and a measure of confidence in the atoning work of Jesus, all true and real so far as it goes; but true liberty of heart cannot possibly be enjoyed until it is seen and understood that God has glorified Himself in the manner of His love toward us. Conscience could never be tranquillized, nor Satan silenced, if sin had not been perfectly judged and put away. But "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." What depth and power in the little word "so!"

(To be continued, if the Lord will.)

Glad Tidings: Part 5

It only remains for us, now, to ponder the last clause of the fruitful passage of scripture winch has been under consideration. (John 3:16.) It sets forth the positive result, in every case, of simple faith in. the Son of God. It declares, in the simplest and clearest way, the fact that every one who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ is a possessor of everlasting life. It is not merely that his sins are blotted out, that is blessedly true. Nor is it merely that he is saved from the consequences of his guilt, which is equally true., But there is more. The believer in Jesus has a new life, and that life is in the Son of God. He is placed upon a new footing altogether. He is no longer looked at in the old Adam condition, but in a risen Christ.

This is an immense truth, and one of deepest possible moment. We earnestly crave the reader's calm and prayerful attention while we seek, in some feeble way, to present to him what we believe to be wrapped up in the last clause of John 3:16.

There is, in the minds of many, a very imperfect sense of what we get by faith in Christ. Some seem to view the atoning work of Christ merely as a remedial measure for the sins of our old nature—the payment of debts contracted in our old condition. That it is all this, we need not say; blessed be God for the precious truth. But it is much more. It is not merely that the sins are atoned for, but the nature which committed them is put to death and set aside by the cross of Christ, and to be " reckoned" dead by the believer. It is not merely that the debts contracted in. the old condition are canceled, but the old condition itself is completely ignored by God, and to be so accounted by the believer.

This great truth is doctrinally unfolded in the fifth chapter of 2 Corinthians Corinthians, where we react, " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (Ver. 17.) The apostle does not say, " If any man be in Christ, he is pardoned—his sins are forgiven—his debts paid." All this is divinely true; but the statement just quoted goes very much further. It declares that a man in Christ is a new creation altogether. It is not the old nature pardoned, but completely set aside, with all its belongings, and a new creation introduced in which there is not a single shred of the old. " All things are become new; and all things are of God."

Now this gives immense relief to the heart. Indeed, we question if any soul can enter into the full liberty of the gospel of Christ, until he lays hold, in some measure, of the truth of the " new creation." There may be a looking to Christ for pardon—a vague hope of getting to heaven at the last—a measure of reliance on the goodness and mercy of God—there may be all this, and yet no just sense of the meaning of "everlasting life"—no happy consciousness of being " a new creation"—no understanding of the grand fact that the old Adam nature is entirely set aside, the old system in which we stood completely abolished.

But it is more than probable that some of our readers may be at a loss to know what is meant by such terms as, " the old Adam nature"—" the old system"—" the flesh"—" the old man," and such like. These expressions may fall strangely on the ears of those for whom we specially write; and we certainly wish to avoid shooting over the heads of our readers. As God is our witness, there is one thing we earnestly desire, one object which we would ever keep before our minds, and that is the instruction and edification of our readers; and therefore we would rather run the risk of being tedious, than make use of phrases which convey no dear or intelligible idea to the mind. And, further, we would add, that we have no desire to press any peculiar theory or notion of our own. To do so could be of no possible value to any one. But no one can look upon the subject of " everlasting life" as a mere notion. And as to such terms as, "the old man"—"the flesh," and the like, scripture uses them in manifold places; for example, in the sixth chapter of Romans, we read, " Knowing tins, that our old man is crucified with him [Christ] that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Ver. 6.

Now, what does the apostle mean by "the old man?" We believe he means our old Adam nature—that nature which we inherited from our first parents. And what does he mean by " the body of sin?" We believe he means the whole system or condition in which we stood in our tin-regenerate, unrenewed, unconverted state. The old Adam nature, then, is declared to be crucified—the whole system of sin is said to be destroyed by the death of Christ. Hence, the soul that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ is privileged to know that his old nature, his sinful, guilty self, is looked upon by God as dead and set aside completely. It has no existence whatever before God. He sees it dead and buried.

Observe, it is not merely that our sins are forgiven, our debts paid, our guilt atoned for; but the nature that committed the sins, contracted the debts, and incurred the guilt is put forever out of God's sight. It is not God's way to forgive us our sins, and yet leave us in the sinful nature that committed them. No; He has, in His marvelous grace and vast plan, condemned and abolished forever, for the believer, the old Adam nature, with all its belongings, so that it is no longer recognized in any way. " He that is dead is freed [justified] from sin." It is not that we are pardoned and our sinful nature left alive. No; we are declared, by the voice of holy scripture, to be crucified—dead—buried, and risen with Christ. God tells us we are so, and we are to " reckon" ourselves to be so. It is a matter of faith, and not merely a matter of feeling. If I look at myself from my standpoint, or judge by my feelings, I shall never—can never understand this truth. And why? Because I feel myself to be just the same sinful creature as ever. I feel that there is sin in me; that in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing; that my old nature is in nowise changed or improved; that it has the same evil tendencies as ever, and if not mortified and kept down by the gracious energy of the Holy Spirit, it will break out in its true character.

And it is just here, we doubt not, that so many sincere souls are perplexed and troubled. They are looking at themselves, and reasoning upon what they see and feel, instead of resting in the truth of God, and reckoning themselves to be what God tells them they are. They find it difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile what they feel in themselves with what they read in the word of God—to make their inward self-consciousness harmonize with God's revelation. But we must remember that faith takes God at His word. It ever thinks with Him on all points. It believes what He says, because He says it. Hence, if God tells me that my old man is crucified—my old nature dead and out of sight, that He no longer sees me as in the old Adam state, but in a risen Christ, I am to believe, like a little child, what he tells me, and walk in the faith of it, from day to clay. If I look in at myself for evidences of the truth of what God says, it is not faith at all. " Abraham considered not Ins own body now dead when he was about an hundred years old; neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb; he staggered not at the promise of God, through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God." Rom. 4:19, 20.

This is the great principle which underlies the whole christian system. "Abraham believed God"—not something about God, but God Himself. Tins is faith. It is taking God's thoughts in place of our own. It is, in short, allowing God to think for us.

Now, when we apply this to the subject before us, it makes it most simple. He that believeth in the Son of God hath everlasting life. Mark, it is not he that believeth something about the Son of God. No; it is he that believeth in Himself. It is a question of simple faith in the Person of Christ; and every one that has this faith is the actual possessor of everlasting life. This is the direct and positive statement of our Lord in the Gospel. It is repeated over and over again. Nor is this all. Not only docs the believer thus possess eternal life, but by the further light which the epistles throw upon the grand question, he may see that Ids old life—that in which he lived in nature—that which the apostle designates "the old man," or " the flesh," is accounted by God as dead and buried. This may be difficult to understand; but let the reader remember that he must believe, not because he understands, but because it is written in God's word. It is not said, " Abraham understood God." No; but he " believed God." It is when the heart believes, that light is poured in upon the understanding. If I wait till I understand in order to believe, I am leaning to my own understanding, instead of committing myself, in childlike faith, to God's word.

Reader, ponder this! You may say you cannot understand how your sinful nature can be looked upon as dead and gone, while you feel its workings, its heavings, its tossings, its tendencies, continually within you. We reply, or rather God's eternal word declares, that if your heart believes in Jesus, then is all this true of you, namely, you have eternal life; you are justified from all things; you are a new creation; old things are passed away; all things are become new: and all things are of God. In a word, you are " in Christ" and, " as he is so are you in this world." (1 John 4:17.)

And is not this a great deal more than the mere pardon of your sins, the canceling of your debts, or the salvation of your soul from hell? Assuredly it is. And suppose we were to ask you, on what authority you believe in the forgiveness of your sins. Is it because you feel, realize, or understand? Nay; but because it is written, " To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." (Acts 10:43.) " The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1:7.) Well, then, upon precisely the same authority you are to believe that your old man is crucified, that you are not in the flesh, not in the old creation, not in the old Adam condition; but that, on the contrary, you are viewed by God as actually in a risen and glorified Christ—that He looks upon you as He looks upon Christ.

True, it is, alas, how true! the flesh is in you, and you are still here, as to the fact of your condition, in this old world, which is under judgment. But, then, hear what your Lord saith, when speaking about you to His Father, " They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." And again, " As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world." John 17:16, 18.

Hence, therefore, if you will just bow to God's word; if you will not reason about what you see in yourself, and feel in yourself, and think of yourself, but simply believe what God says, you will enter into the blessed peace and holy liberty flowing from the fact that you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; nor in the old creation, but in the new; not under law, but under grace; not of the world, but of God. You have passed clean off the old platform which you occupied as a child of nature, and a member of the first Adam; and you have taken your place on a new platform altogether, as a child of God, and a member of the body of Christ.

All this is vividly prefigured by the deluge and the ark, in the days of Noah. (See Gen. 6-8.) "And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted Ms way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth." Here, then, was, in type, the end of the old creation. All was to pass under the waters of judgment. What then? " Make thee an ark of gopher wood." Here we have set forth a figure of the new thing. That ark, floating peacefully over the dark abyss of waters, was a type of Christ, and the believer in Him. The old world, together with man, was buried beneath the waves of judgment, and the only object that remained was the ark—the vessel of mercy and salvation, riding in safety and triumph over the billows. Thus it is now, in truth and reality. There is nothing before the eye of God but a risen, victorious, and glorified Christ, and His people linked with Him. The end of all flesh has come before God. It is not a question of some very gross forms of " flesh," or of nature, of that merely which is " vile and refuse." No; it is " the end of all." Such is the solemn, sweeping verdict; and then—what? A risen Christ. Nothing else. All in Him are seen by God as He is seen. All out of Him are under judgment. It all hinges upon this one question, "Am I in or out of Christ?" What a question!

Reader, are you in Christ? Do you believe in His Name? Have you given Him the confidence of your heart? If so, you have " eternal life"—you are "a new creation"—" old things are passed away." God does not see a single shred of the old thing remaining for you. " All things are become new, and all things are of God." You may say, you do not feel that old things are all passed away. We reply, God says they are, and it is your happy privilege to believe what He says, and " reckon" yourself to be what He declares you are. God speaks according to that which is true of you in Christ. He does not see you in the flesh, but in Christ. There is absolutely nothing before the eye of God but Christ; and the very weakest believer is viewed as part of Christ, just as your hand is a part of your body. You have no existence apart from Christ—no life—no righteousness—no holiness—no wisdom—no power. Apart from Him, you are nothing, and can do nothing. In Him you have all and can do all; you are thoroughly identified with Christ. Marvelous fact! Profound mystery! Most glorious truth! It is not a question of attainment or of progress. It is the settled and absolute standing of the feeblest member of the Church of God. True, there are various measures of intelligence, experience, and devotedness; but there is only one life, one standing, one position before God, and that is Christ. There is no such thing as a higher or a lower christian life. Christ is the believer's life, and you cannot speak of a higher or a lower Christ. We can understand the higher stages of christian life; but there is no spiritual intelligence in speaking of a higher christian life. " He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life."

This is a grand truth, and we earnestly pray that God the Spirit may open it fully to the mind of the reader. We feel assured that a clearer understanding thereof would chase away a thousand mists, answer a thousand questions, and solve a thousand difficulties. It would not only have the effect of giving settled peace to the soul, but also of determining the believer's position in the most distinct way. If Christ is my life—if I am in Him and identified with Him, then not only do I share in His acceptance with God, but also in His rejection by this present world. The two things go together. They form the two sides of the one grand question. If I am in Christ and as Christ, before God, then I am in Christ and as Christ before the world; and it Trill never do to accept the result of this union before God, and refuse the results of it as regards the world. If we have the one, we must have the other likewise.

All this is fully unfolded in John 17 There we read, on the one hand, " The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may he one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me." (Ver. 22, 23.) And, on the other hand, we read, " I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." (Ver. 14.) This is as plain and positive as anything can be. And be it remembered that, in this wondrous scripture, our Lord is not speaking merely of the apostles, but, as He says, of " them also who shall believe on me through their word," that is, of all believers. Hence it follows that all who believe in Jesus are one with Him, as accepted above; and one with Him, as rejected below. The two things are inseparable. The Head and the members share in one common acceptance in heaven, and in one common rejection upon earth. Oh! that all the Lord's people entered more into the truth and reality of this! Would that we all knew a little more of the meaning of fellowship with a heaven-accepted, earth-rejected Christ!

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 1

(2 Cor. 5:18-21.)

The fifth chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians takes rank amongst the very weightiest sections of inspiration. Its closing lines contain the special thesis of the following pages; but, ere we proceed to handle it, we must call the reader's attention to some most interesting and important points presented in the course of the chapter.

And, first of all, let us dwell, for a moment, on the opening sentence, " We know." In it we have the language of christian certainty. It does not say, "We hope." Still less does it say, "We fear," or "We doubt." No; such language would not express that unclouded certainty and calm assurance which it is the privilege of the very feeblest child of God to possess. And yet, alas! how few, even of the children of God, enjoy tins blessed certainty—this calm assurance! Many there are who look upon it as the height of presumption to say, " We know." They seem to think that doubts and fears argue a proper condition of soul—that it is impossible for any one to be sure—that the most we can expect is to cherish a vague hope of reaching heaven when we die.

Now, it must be admitted that if we ourselves had aught to do with the ground of certainty or assurance, then it would indeed be the very height of folly to think of being sure; then, assuredly, our hope would be a very vague one. But, thanks be to God, it is not so. We have nothing whatever to do with the ground of our certainty; it lies entirely outside of ourselves, and must be sought only and altogether in the eternal word of God. This renders it so blessedly simple. It makes the whole question hinge upon the truth of God's word. Why am I sure? Because God's word is true. A shadow of uncertainty or misgiving on my part would argue a want of authority or security in the word of God. It really comes to this. Christian certainty rests on the faithfulness of God. Before you can shake the former, you. must shake the latter.

We can understand this simple principle by our dealings with one another. If my fellow man makes a statement to me, and I express the smallest doubt or misgiving, or if I feel it, without even expressing it, I am calling in question his truthfulness or credibility. If he is a faithful, competent authority, I have no business to entertain a single doubt. My certainty is linked with his credibility. If he is a competent authority, I may enjoy perfect repose as to the matter concerning which he has spoken. Now, we all know what it is to receive in the most unqualified way, the testimony of man, and to repose with calmness therein. It is not a question of feeling, but of receiving, without a single question, a plain statement, and resting on the authority of a competent witness. Well, then, as we have it in the First Epistle of John, " If we receive the testimony of man, the testimony of God is greater." So also our Lord said to the men of His time, " If I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?" (John 8) He appeals to the truth of what He says, as the reason why, or the ground on which He expected to be believed.

This, christian reader, is a very weighty principle, and one which demands special attention on the part of all anxious enquirers, as also on the part of all who undertake to deal with such. There is a strong and constant tendency to look within for the ground of assurance—to build upon certain feelings, experiences, and exercises, either past or present—to look back at some special process through which we have passed, or to look in at certain impressions or convictions of our own minds, and to find in these the ground of our confidence—the warrant for our faith. This will never do. It is impossible to find settled peace or calm repose in this way. Feelings, however true and real, change and pass away. Experiences however genuine, may prove defective. Impressions and convictions may prove utterly false. None of these things therefore can form a solid ground of christian certainty. This latter must be sought and found in God's word alone. It is not in feelings—not in experiences—not in impressions or convictions—not in reasonings—not in human traditions or doctrines, but simply in the unchangeable, eternal word of the living God. That word which is settled forever in heaven, and which God has magnified above all His Name, can alone impart peace to the mind and stability to the soul.

True, it is only by the gracious ministry of the Holy Ghost, that we can properly grasp, and ever hold fast the word of God; but still it is His word, and that word alone, that forms the ground of christian certainty, and the true basis and authority for the Christian in the entire range of practical life and action. We cannot be too simple as to this. We can only adopt the opening sentence of our chapter, and say, "We know," when we take God's word as the all-sufficient ground of our personal confidence. It will not do to be, in anywise, propped up by human authority. Thousands of the people of God have been made to taste the bitterness of leaning upon the commandments and doctrines of men. It is sure to end in disappointment and confusion, sooner or later. The edifice which is built Upon the sand of human authority must fall at some time or other; whereas that which is founded on the rock of God's eternal truth shall stand forever. God's word imparts its own stability to the soul that leans upon it. " Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried atone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste." Isa. 28:10.

As is the foundation, so is the faith that builds thereon. Hence the solemn importance of seeking to lead souls to build only upon God's precious word. Look at the anxiety of the apostle Paul, in reference to this matter.

Hear what he says to the Corinthians who were in such danger of being led away by human headship and human authority. " And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." 1 Cor. 2:1-5.

Here is a grand model for all preachers and teachers. Paul declared the "testimony of God," nothing more, nothing less, nothing different. And not only so, but he delivered that testimony in such a way as to connect the souls of his hearers immediately with the living God. Paul did not want the Corinthians to lean upon him; nay, he " trembled" lest they should be tempted to do so. He would have done them a grievous wrong had he, in any vise, come in between their souls and the true source of all authority—the true foundation of confidence and peace. Had he led them to build upon himself, he would have robbed them of God, and this would have been a wrong indeed. No marvel therefore that he was among them " in fear and in much trembling." They were evidently very much prone to set up and follow after human leaders, and thus miss the solid reality of personal communion with, and dependence upon, the living God. Hence the jealous care of the apostle in confining himself to the testimony of God; in delivering unto them only that which he had received of the Lord (see 1 Cor. 11:23; 15:3.); lest the pure water should suffer Μ its passage from its source in God to the souls of the Corinthians—lest he should, in the smallest degree, impart the color of Ms own thoughts to the precious truth of God.

We see the same thing in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians. " For this cause also," says the faithful servant of Christ, " thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe." (Chap. ii. 13.) Had the apostle been thinking of himself, had he been seeking his own things, he would have been glad to obtain influence over the Thessalonians, by linking them on to himself, and leading them to lean upon him. But no; he rejoices in seeing them in having connection—in direct and realized association, with God Himself. This is always the effect of true ministry, as it is ever the object of the true minister. Unless the soul be livingly linked with God, there is really nothing done. If it be merely following men—receiving what they say, because they say it—an attachment to certain preachers or teachers because of something in their style and manner; or because they seem to be very holy, very separated, or very devoted—all this will come to naught. Those human links will soon be snapped asunder. The faith that stands, in any measure, in the wisdom of men will prove hollow and worthless. Nothing will prove permanent—nothing will endure, but that faith which rests on the testimony and in the power of the only true God.

Christian reader, we earnestly invite your attention to this point. We do indeed feel its importance at the present moment. The enemy is seeming diligently to lead souls away from God, away from Christ, away from the Holy Scriptures. He is seeking to get them to build on something short of the truth. He does not care what it is, provided it is not Christ. It may be reason, tradition, religiousness, a human priesthood, fleshly pietism, holiness in the flesh, sectarianism, morality, good works, services so called, human influence, patronage, philanthropy; anything short of Christ, short of God's word, short of a lively, personal, direct faith in the living God Himself.

Now, it is the sense of this pressing home upon the heart that leads us to urge with earnestness upon the reader the necessity of being thoroughly clear as to the ground on which he is, at this moment, standing. "We want him to be able to say, in the face of all around him, " / know." Nothing less than this will stand. It will not do to say, " I hope." No; there must be certainty. There must be the ability to say, " We know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." This is the language of faith—the language of a Christian. All is calm, clear, and sure, because all is of God. There may be an "if" with regard to "the earthly house." It may be dissolved, it may crumble into dust. All that belongs to this scene may bear the stamp of death; it may change and pass away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever, and the faith that grasps and rests upon that word partakes of its eternal stability. It enables one to say, " I know that I have." Naught but faith can say tins. Reason can only say, "I doubt;" superstition, " I fear;" only faith can say, " I know and am sure."

An infidel teacher once said to a dying woman, whom he had indoctrinated with his infidel notions, " Hold fast, Mary." What was her reply? "I can't hold fast, for you have never given me anything to hold by." Cutting rebuke! He had taught the poor woman to doubt; but he had given her nothing to believe; and then when flesh and heart were failing, when earthly scenes were passing away, and the dread realities of eternity were crowding in upon her soul's vision, infidelity altogether failed her; its wretched cobwebs could afford no refuge, no covering, in view of death and judgment. How different the condition of the believer—of the one who, in all simplicity of heart and humility of mind, takes Ms stand on the solid rock of Holy Scripture! Such an one can calmly say, " / am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but to all them also that love his appearing." 2 Tim. 4:6-8.

(To be continued, if the Lord will)

Great Commission: Part 5

In handling our subject, we have yet to consider the authority and the sphere of " The Great Commission;" but, ere proceeding to treat of these, we must dwell a little longer on the basis. The commission is truly a great one, and would need a solid foundation on which to rest it; and such it has, blessed be God, in the atoning death of His Son. Nothing less than this could sustain such a magnificent fabric; but the grace that planned the commission has laid the foundation, and this is enough for us. A full remission of sins can be preached among all nations inasmuch as God has been glorified, in the death of Christ, as to the entire question of sin.

This is a grand point for the reader to seize. It lies at the very foundation of the christian system. It is the keystone of the arch of divine revelation. God has been glorified as to sin. His judgment has been executed upon it. The claims of His throne have been vindicated as to it. The insult offered to His divine majesty has been flung back in the enemy's face. If the sweet story of remission of sins had never fallen upon a human ear or entered a human heart, the divine glory would, none the less, have been most perfectly maintained. The Lord Jesus Christ did, by His most precious death, wipe off the stain which the enemy sought to cast upon the eternal glory of God. A testimony has been given in the cross, to all created intelligence, as to God's thoughts about sin. It can there be seen, with all possible clearness, that a single trace of sin can never enter the precincts of the divine presence. God is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity. Sin, wherever found, must be met by divine judgment.

Where, we may ask, does all this come most fully and forcibly out? Assuredly in the cross. Hearken to that solemn and most mysterious cry, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" What means this wondrous inquiry? Who is the speaker? Is He one of Adam's fallen posterity? Is He a sinner? Surely not; for were He such, there would be no moral force whatever in the question. There never was a sinner on the face of this earth who, so far as he was personally concerned, did not richly deserve to be forsaken of a holy, sin-hating God. This must never be forgotten. Some people entertain the most foolish notions as to this point. They have, in their own vain imagination, manufactured a god to suit themselves—one who will not punish sin—one who is so tender, so kind, so benevolent, that he will connive at evil and pass it over as though it were nothing.

Now, nothing is more certain than that this god of the human imagination is a false one, just as false as any of the idols of the heathen. The God of the Bible, the God of Christianity, the God whom we see at the cross is not like this. Men may reason as they will; but sin must be condemned—it must be met by the just and inflexible judgment of a sin-hating God.

But, we repeat the question, who uttered those words at the opening of Psalm 22? If He was not a sinner, who was He? Wonderful to declare, He was the only spotless, perfectly holy, pure and sinless man that ever trod this earth. He was more. He was the eternal Son of the Father; the object of God's ineffable delight who had dwelt in His bosom from all eternity, " the brightness of His glory and the exact expression of His substance." (See Greek.)

And yet He was forsaken of God. Yes, that holy and perfect One, who knew no sin, whose human nature was absolutely free from every taint, who never had a single thought, never uttered a single word, never did a single act that was not in the most perfect harmony with the mind of God; whose whole life, from Bethlehem to Calvary, was a perfect sacrifice of sweetest odor presented to the heart of God. Again and again, we see heaven opening upon Him, and the voice of the Father is heard giving expression to His infinite complacency in the Son of His bosom. And yet, He it is whose voice is heard in that bitter cry, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Marvelous question! It stands alone in the annals of eternity. No such question had ever been asked before; no such question has ever been asked since; and no such question can ever be asked again. Whether we consider the One who asked the question, or the One of whom it was asked, or the answer, we must admit that it is perfectly unique. That God should forsake such an One is the most profound and marvelous mystery that could possibly engage the attention of men or angels. Human reason cannot fathom its depths. No created intelligence can comprehend its mighty compass.

Yet there it stands, a stupendous fact before the eye of faith. Our blessed Lord Himself assures us that it was absolutely necessary. " Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer." But why was it necessary? Why should the only perfect, sinless, spotless man have to suffer? Why should He be forsaken of God? The glory of God, the eternal counsels of redeeming love, man's guilty, ruined, helpless condition—all these things rendered it indispensable that Christ should suffer. There was no other way in which the divine glory could be maintained; no other way in which the claims of the throne of God could be answered; no other way in which heaven's majesty could be vindicated; no other way in which the eternal purposes of love could be made good; no other way in which sin could be fully atoned for, and finally taken away out of God's creation; no other way in which sins could be forgiven; no other way in which Satan and all the powers of darkness could be thoroughly vanquished; no other way in which God could be just, and yet the Justifier of any poor ungodly sinner; no other way in which death could be deprived of its sting, or the grave of its victory; no other way in which any or all of these grand results could be reached save by the sufferings and death of our adorable Lord Jesus Christ.

But, blessed forever be His holy Name, He went through it all. He went down under the heavy billows and waves of God's righteous wrath against sin. He took the sinner's place, stood in his stead, sustained the judgment, paid the penalty, died the death, answered every question, met every demand, vanquished every foe; and having done all, He ascended into the heavens and took His seat on the throne of God, where He is now crowned with glory and honor as the divine and all-glorious Accomplisher of the entire work of man's redemption.

Such then, reader, is the basis of " The Great Commission" whereof we speak. Need we wonder at the terms, when we contemplate the basis? Can there be anything too good, anything too great, anything too glorious for the God of all grace to bestow upon us poor sinners of the Gentiles, seeing He has been so fully glorified in the death of Christ? That most precious death furnishes a divinely righteous ground on which our God can indulge the deep and everlasting love of His heart in the perfect remission of our sins. It has removed out of the way every barrier to the full flood tide of redeeming love which can now flow through a perfectly righteous channel, to the very vilest sinner that repents and believes in Jesus. A Savior God can now publish a full and immediate remission of sins to every creature under heaven. There is positively no hindrance. God has been glorified as to the question of sin; and the time is coming when every trace of sin shall be forever obliterated from His fair creation, and those words of John the Baptist shall have their full accomplishment, " Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." Meanwhile, the heralds of salvation are commanded to go forth to the ends of the earth and publish, without let or limitation, perfect remission of sins to every soul that believes. It is the joy of God's heart to pardon sins; and it is due to the One who bore the judgment of sin on the cross, that in His name, forgiveness of sins should be thus freely published, fully received and abidingly enjoyed.

But what of those who reject this glorious message—who shut their ears against it and turn away their hearts from it? This is the solemn question. Who can answer it? Who can attempt to set forth the eternal destiny of those who die in their sins, as all must who refuse God's only basis of remission? Men may reason and argue as they will; but all the reasoning and argument in the world cannot set aside the word of God which assures us, in manifold places, and in terms so plain as to leave no possible ground for questioning, that all who die in their sins—all who die out of Christ, must inevitably perish eternally—must bear the consequences of their sins, in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.

To quote the passages in proof of the solemn truth of eternal punishment would require a small volume. We cannot attempt it here; nor is it necessary, inasmuch as we have gone into the subject again and again, in former volumes of " Things New and Old."

But we would here put a question which arises naturally out of our present thesis. It is this: Was Christ judged, bruised and forsaken on the cross—did God visit His only-begotten and well-beloved Son with the full weight of His righteous wrath against sin, and shall impenitent sinners escape? We solemnly press this question on all whom it may concern. Men talk of its being inconsistent with the idea of divine goodness, tenderness and compassion, that God should send any of His creatures to hell. We reply, who is to be the judge? Is man competent to decide as to what is morally fitting for God to do? And further we ask, what is to be the standard of judgment? Anything that human reason can grasp? Assuredly not. What then? The cross in which the Son of God died the just for the unjust. This, and this only is the great standard by which to judge the question as to sin's desert. Who can hearken to that bitter cry emanating from the broken heart of the Son of God, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" and question the eternal punishment of all who die in their sins? Talk of tenderness, goodness and compassion! Where do these shine out most brightly and blessedly? Surely in " The Great Commission" which publishes full and free forgiveness of sins to every creature under heaven. But would it be tender or good, or compassionate to suffer the rejecter of Christ to escape? If we would see the goodness, kindness, mercy, and deep compassion of God, we must look at the cross. " He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." " It pleased Jehovah to bruise him. He hath put him to grief." " He hath made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him."

But if men reject all this and go on in their sins, in their rebellion, in their infidel reasonings, and impious speculations—what then? If men maintain that suffering for sin is not necessary, and that there is another and a better way of disposing of the matter—what then? Our Lord declared in the ears of His apostles that "it was necessary that Christ should suffer" that there was no other way possible by which the great question could be settled. Whom are we to believe? Was the death of Christ gratuitous? Was His heart broken for nothing? Was the cross a work of supererogation? Did Jehovah bruise His Son and put Him to grief for an end which might be gained some other way?

How monstrous are the reasonings or rather the ravings of infidelity! Infidel doctors begin by throwing overboard the word of God, that peerless and perfect revelation; and then, when they have deprived us of our divine guide, with singular audacity, they present themselves before us, and undertake to point out for us a more excellent way; and when we inquire what that way is, we are met by a thousand and one fine-spun theories, no two of which agree in anything save in shutting out God and His word.

True, they talk plausibly about a God; but it is a God of their own imagination—one who will connive at sin—who will allow them to indulge in their lusts, and passions, and pleasures, and then take them to a heaven of which they really know nothing. They talk of mercy, and kindness, and goodness; but they reject the only channel through which these can flow, namely, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. They speak not of righteousness, holiness, truth and judgment to come. They would fain have us to believe that God put Himself to needless cost in delivering up His Son. They would ignore that marvelous transaction which stands alone in the entire history of the ways of God—the atoning death of His Son. In one word, the grand object of the devil, in all the skeptical, rationalistic, and infidel theories that have ever been propounded in this world? is to shut out completely, the word of God, the Christ of God, and God Himself.

We solemnly call upon all our readers, specially our young friends, to ponder this. It is our deep and thorough conviction that the harboring of a single infidel suggestion is the first step on that inclined plane which leads straight down to the dark and terrible abyss of atheism—down to the blackness of darkness forever.

We shall have occasion to recur to the foregoing line of thought when we come to consider the " authority" on which " The Great Commission" comes to us. We have been drawn into it by the sad fact that, in every direction, and on every subject, we are assailed by the contemptible reasonings of infidelity; and we feel imperatively called upon to warn all with whom we come in contact against infidel books, infidel lectures, infidel theories in every shape and form. May the inspired word of God be more and more precious to our hearts! May we walk in its light, feel its sacred power, bow to its divine authority, hide it in our hearts, feed upon its treasures, own its absolute supremacy, confess its all-sufficiency, and utterly reject all teaching which dares to touch the integrity of the holy scriptures.

(To be continued in our next, if the Lord will)

" The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with the angels of his power, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." 2 Thess. 1:7-9.

Great Commission: Part 2

Since writing our paper for January, we have been much interested in the way in which repentance is presented in those inimitable parables in Luke 15 There we learn, in a manner the most touching and convincing, not only the abiding and universal necessity—the moral fitness, in every case, of true repentance; but also that it is grateful to the heart of God. Our Lord, in His marvelous reply to the scribes and Pharisees, declares that " there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." And, again, " Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."

Now this gives us a very elevated view of the subject. It is one thing to see that repentance is binding upon man; and another and very much higher thing to see that it is grateful to God. " Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." A broken heart, a contrite spirit, a repentant mind, gives joy to God.

Let us ponder this fact. The scribes and Pharisees murmured because Jesus received sinners. How little they understood Him! How little they knew of the object that brought Him down into this dark and sinful world! How little they knew of themselves! It was the "lost" that Jesus came to seek. But scribes and Pharisees did not think themselves lost. They thought they were all right. They did not want a Savior. They were thoroughly unbroken, unrepentant, self-confident; and hence they had never afforded one atom «of joy in heaven. All the learning of the scribes, and all the righteousness of the Pharisees could not waken up a single note of joy in the presence of the angels of God. They were like the elder son in the parable who said, " Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment; and jet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends."

Here we have a true specimen of an unbroken heart and an unrepentant spirit—a man thoroughly satisfied with himself. Miserable object! He had never touched a chord in the Father's heart—never drawn out the Father's love—never felt the Father's embrace—never received the Father's welcome. How could he? He had never felt himself lost. He was full of himself, and therefore had no room for the Father's love. He did not feel that he owed anything and hence he had nothing to be forgiven. It rather seemed to him that the father was his debtor. "Lo, these many years do I serve thee; and yet thou never gavest me a kid." He had not received his wages.

What egregious folly! And yet it is just the same with every unrepentant soul—everyone who is building upon his own righteousness. He really makes God his debtor. " I have served thee; but I have never gotten what I earned." Miserable notion! The man who talks of his duties, his doings, his sayings, his givings, is really insulting God. But on the other hand, the man who comes with a broken heart, a contrite spirit, repentant, self-judged, that is the man who gives joy to the heart of God.

And why? Simply because such an one feels his need of God. Here lies the grand moral secret of the whole matter. To apprehend this is to grasp the full truth on the great question of repentance. A God of love desires to make His way to the sinner's heart, but there is no room for Him so long as that heart is hard and impenitent. But when the sinner is brought to the end of himself, when he sees himself a helpless hopeless wreck, when he sees the utter emptiness, hollowness, and vanity of all earthly things, when like the prodigal he comes to himself and feels the depth and reality of his need, then there is room in the heart for God, and—marvelous truth!—God delights to come and fill it. " To this man will I look." To whom? To the man who does his duty, keeps the law, does his best, lives up to his light? Nay; but "To him who is of a contrite spirit."

It will, perhaps, be said that the words just quoted apply to Israel. Primarily, they do; but morally, they apply to every contrite heart on the face of the earth. And, further, it cannot be said that Luke 15 applies specially to Israel. It applies to all. " There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that"—what? Does his duty? Nay, it does not even say, "that believeth?" No doubt believing is essential in every case; but the interesting point here is that a truly repentant sinner causes joy in heaven. A person may say, "I fear I do not believe." Well, but do you repent? Have your eyes been opened to see your true condition before God? Have you taken your true place before God as utterly lost? If so, you are one of those over whom there is joy in heaven. What gave joy to the shepherd's heart? Was it the ninety and nine sheep that went not astray? Nay, it was finding the lost sheep. What gave joy to the woman's heart? Was it the nine pieces safe in her possession? Nay, it was finding the one lost piece. What gave joy to the father's heart? Was it the service and the obedience of the elder son? Nay, it was getting back his lost son. A repentant, brokenhearted, returning sinner wakens up heaven's joy. "Let us eat and be merry." Why? Because the elder son has been working in the fields and doing his duty? No; but, " This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."

All this is perfectly wonderful. Indeed it is so wonderful that if we had it not from the lips of Him who is the Truth, and on the eternal page of divine inspiration, we could not believe it. But, blessed be God, there it stands, and none can gainsay it. There shines the glorious truth that a poor, broken-hearted, penitent, worthless, self-destroyed, hell-deserving sinner gives joy to the heart of God. Let people talk as they will about keeping the law and doing their duty. It may go for what it is worth; but be it remembered that there is no such clause within the covers of the volume of God—no such sentence ever dropped from the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ as, " There is joy in heaven over one sinner that docs his duty."

A sinner's duty! What is it? "God commandeth all men everywhere to repent." "What is it that can really define our duty? Surely the divine command. Well, here it is, and there is no getting over it. God's command to all men, in every place, is to repent. His commandment binds them to it; His goodness leads them to it; His judgment warns them to it; and, above all, and most marvelous of all, He assures us that our repentance gives joy to His heart. A penitent heart is an object of profoundest interest to the mind of God, because that heart is morally prepared to receive what God delights to bestow, namely, "remission of sins"—yea, all the fullness of divine love. A man might spend millions in the cause of religion and philanthropy, and not afford one atom of joy in heaven. What are millions of money to God? A single penitential tear is more precious to Him than all the wealth of the universe. All the offerings of an unbroken heart are a positive insult to God; but a single sigh from the depths of a contrite spirit goes up as fragrant incense to His throne and to His heart.

No man can meet God on the ground of duty; but God can meet any man—the very chief of sinners, on the ground of repentance, for that is man's true place; and we may say with all possible confidence that when the sinner as he is, meets God as He is, the whole question is settled once and forever. " I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." The moment mat! takes his true place—the place of repentance, God meets him with a full forgiveness, a divine and everlasting righteousness. It is His joy to do so. It gratifies His heart and it glorifies His name to pardon, justify, and accept a penitent soul that simply believes in Jesus. The very moment the prophet cried, "Woe is me; for I am undone,"—" Then flew one of the seraphims with a live coal from off the altar."

Thus it is always. The fullness of God ever waits on an empty vessel. If I am full of myself, full of my own fancied goodness, my own morality, my own righteousness, I have no room for God, no room for Christ. " He filleth the hungry with good things; but the rich he hath sent empty away." A self-emptied soul can be filled with the fullness of God; but if God sends a man empty away, whither can he go to be filled? All scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, goes to prove the deep blessedness as well as the moral necessity of repentance. It is the grand turning-point in the soul's history—a great moral epoch which sheds its influence over the whole of one after life. It is not, we repeat, a transient exercise; but an abiding moral condition. We are not now speaking of how repentance is produced; we are speaking of what it is according to scripture, and of the absolute need of it for every creature under heaven. It is the sinner's true place, and when through grace he takes it, he is met by the fullness of God's salvation.

And here we see the lovely connection between the first and second clauses of " The great commission," namely, " Repentance and remission of sins." They are inseparably linked together. It is not that the most profound and genuine repentance forms the meritorious ground of remission of sins. To say or to think so, would be to set aside the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ, for in that and in that alone have we the divine ground on which God can righteously forgive us our sins. This we shall see more fully when we come to consider the "basis" of " the great commission." We are now occupied with the commission itself; and in it we see those two divinely settled facts, repentance and remission of sins. The holy apostles of our Lord and Savior were charged to preach among all nations; to declare in the ears of every creature under heaven, " repentance and remission of sins." Every man, be he Jew or Gentile, is absolutely commanded by God to repent, and every repentant soul is privileged to receive, on the spot, the full and everlasting remission of sins. And we may add the deeper and more abiding the work of repentance, the deeper and more abiding will be the enjoyment of remission of sins. The contrite soul lives in the very atmosphere of divine forgiveness; and as it inhales that atmosphere, it shrinks, with ever-increasing horror, from sin in every shape and form.

Let us now turn for a moment to the Acts of the Apostles, and see how Christ's ambassadors carried out the second part of His blessed commission. Hear the apostle of the circumcision addressing the Jews on the day of Pentecost. We cannot attempt to quote the whole of his marvelous address; we merely give the few words of application at the close. " Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ."

Here the preacher bears down upon the consciences of his hearers with the solemn fact that they had proved themselves to be at issue with God Himself about His Christ. What a tremendous fact! It was not merely that they had broken the law, rejected the prophets, refused the testimony of John the Baptist; but they had actually crucified the Lord of glory, the eternal Son of God. " Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men, brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Acts 2:36-38.

Here are the two parts of the great commission brought out in all their distinctness and power. The people are charged with the most awful sin that could be committed, namely, the murder of the Son of God; they are called upon to repent, and assured of full remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost. What wondrous grace shines forth in all this! The very men that had mocked and insulted the Son of God, that had spit upon Him and crucified Him, even these, if truly repentant, were assured of the complete pardon of all their sins and of their crowning sin amongst the rest. Such is the wondrous grace of God—such the mighty efficacy of the blood of Christ—such the clear and authoritative testimony of the Holy Ghost—such the glorious terms of "the great commission."

But let us turn for a moment to Acts 3 Here the preacher, after charging his hearers with the same awful act of wickedness, enmity, and rebellion against God, even the rejection and murder of His Son, adds these remarkable words, " And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out."

It is not possible to conceive anything higher or fuller than the grace that shines out here. It is a part of the divine response to the prayer of Christ, on the cross, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This surely is royal grace. It is victorious grace—grace reigning through righteousness. It was impossible that such a prayer could fall to the ground. It was answered in part, on the day of Pentecost. It will be answered, in full, at a future day, for "All Israel shall be saved; as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob."

But mark particularly the words, " Those things which God before had showed.... He hath so fulfilled." Here the preacher brings in God's side of the matter; and this is salvation. To see only man's part in the cross would be eternal judgment. To see God's part and to rest in it is eternal life, full remission of sins, divine righteousness, everlasting glory.

The reader will doubtless be reminded here of the touching scene between Joseph and his brethren. There is a striking analogy between Acts 3 and Gen. 45 " Now therefore," says Joseph, " be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life.....And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God"

But when were these words uttered? Not until the guilty brethren had felt and owned their guilt. Repentance preceded the remission. " They said one to another, We arc verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear, therefore is this distress come upon us." Joseph "spake roughly" to his brethren at the first. He brought them through deep waters, and made them feel and confess their guilt. But the very moment they took the ground of repentance, he took the ground of forgiveness. The penitent brethren were met by a pardoning Joseph, and the whole house of Pharaoh was made to ring with the joy which filled the heart of Joseph on getting back to his bosom the very men that had flung him into the pit.

What an illustration of " repentance and remission of sins!" It is ever thus. It is the joy of the heart of God to forgive us our sins. He delights in causing the full tide of His pardoning love to flow into the broken and contrite heart.

Yes, beloved reader, if you have been brought to feel the burden of your guilt, then be assured it is your privilege this very moment, to receive a divine and everlasting remission of all your sins—yea, your sins will never be mentioned to you. The blood of Jesus Christ has perfectly settled the question of your guilt, and you are now invited to rejoice in the God of your salvation.

(To he continued, if the Lord will.)

Great Commission: Part 3

We shall now turn for a few moments to the ministry of the apostle of the Gentiles, and see how he fulfilled the great commission. We have already heard him on the subject of " repentance." Let us hear him also on the great question of "remission of sins."

Paul was not of the twelve. He did not receive his commission from Christ on earth, but, as he himself distinctly and repeatedly tells us, from Christ in heavenly glory. Some have spent not a little time and pains in laboring to prove that he was of the twelve, and that the election of Matthias in Acts 1 was a mistake. But it is labor sadly wasted, and only proves an entire misunderstanding of Paul's position and ministry. He was raised up for a special object, and made the depositary of a special truth which had never been made known to any one before, namely, the truth of the church—the one body, composed of Jew and Gentile, incorporated by the Holy Ghost, and linked, by His personal indwelling, to the risen and glorified Head in heaven.

Paul received his own special commission, of which he gives a very beautiful statement in his address to Agrippa, in Acts 26, "Whereupon as I went to Damascus, with authority and commission from the chief priests"—what a different " commission" he received ere he entered Damascus!—" at midday, Ο king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest." Here the glorious truth of the intimate union of believers with the glorified Man in heaven, though not stated, is beautifully and forcibly implied. " But rise, and stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people and the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins"—αφςσιν the same word as in the commission to the twelve in Luke 24—" and inheritance among them which are sanctified, by faith that is in me."

What depth and fullness in these words! What a comprehensive statement of man's condition! What a blessed presentation of the resources of divine grace! There is a very remarkable harmony between this commission to Paul and that to the twelve in Luke 24 It will perhaps be said there is nothing about repentance. True, the word does not occur; but we have the moral reality, and that with singular force and fullness. What mean the words, " To open their eyes?"

Do they not most certainly involve the discovery of our condition? Assuredly. A man who has his eyes opened is brought to the knowledge of himself, the knowledge of his condition, the knowledge of his ways; and this is true repentance. It is a wonderful moment in a man's history when his eyes are opened. It is the grand crisis, the momentous epoch, the one turning-point. Till then he is blind, morally and spiritually blind. He cannot see a single divine object. He has no perception of anything pertaining to God, to Christ, to heaven.

This is truly humbling to proud human nature. Think of a clear-headed, highly educated, deeply learned, intellectual man, a profound thinker, a powerful reasoner, a thorough philosopher, who has won all the honors, the medals, the degrees, that this world's universities can bestow; and yet he is blind to everything spiritual, heavenly, divine. He gropes in moral darkness. He thinks he sees, assumes the right to judge and pronounce upon things, even upon scripture and upon God Himself. He undertakes to decide what is fitting for God to say and to do. He sets up his own mind as the measure in the things of God. He reasons upon immortality, upon eternal life, and eternal punishment. He deems himself perfectly competent to give judgment in reference to all these solemn and weighty matters; and all the while his eyes have never been opened. How much is his judgment worth? Nothing. Who would take the opinion of a man who, if his eyes were only opened, would reverse, that opinion in reference to everything heavenly and divine? Who would think for a moment of being guided by a blind man?

But how do we know that every man in his natural, his unconverted state is blind? Because, according to Paul's commission, the very first thing which the gospel is to do for him is " to open his eyes." This proves, beyond all question, that he must be blind. Paul was sent to the people and to the Gentiles—that is, to the whole human family—to open their eyes. This proves, to a divine demonstration, that all are by nature blind.

But there is more than this. Man is not only blind, but he is in " darkness." Supposing for a moment that a person has his eyesight, of what use is it to him if he is in the dark? It is the double statement as to man's state and position. As to his state, he is blind. As to his position, he is in darkness; and when his eyes are opened, and divine light streams in upon his soul, he then judges himself and his ways according to God. He sees his folly, his guilt, his rebellion, his wild infidel reasonings, his foolish notions, the vanity of his mind, his pride and ambition, his selfishness and worldliness—all these things are judged and abhorred. He repents, and turns right round to the One who has opened his eyes, and poured in a flood of living light upon his heart and conscience.

But, further, not only is man—every man—Jew and Gentile, blind and in darkness, but, as if to give the climax of all, he is under the power of Satan. This gives a terrible idea of man's condition. He is the slave of the devil. He does not believe this. He imagines himself free—thinks he is his own master—fancies he can go where he pleases, do what he likes, think for himself, speak and act as an independent being.

But he is the bond-slave of another! he is sold under sin, bound hand and foot. Satan is his lord and master. Thus scripture speaks, and it cannot be broken. Man may refuse to believe, but that cannot touch the fact. A condemned criminal at the bar may refuse to believe the testimony from the witness table, the verdict from the jury-box, the sentence from the bench; but that in nowise alters his terrible condition. He is a condemned criminal all the same. So with man as a sinner; he may refuse the plain testimony of scripture, but that testimony remains notwithstanding. Even if the thousand millions that people this globe were to deny the truth of God's word, that word would still stand unmoved. Scripture does not depend for its truth upon man's belief. It is true whether he believes it or not. Blessed forever is the man who believes; damned forever is the man who refuses to believe; but the word of God is settled forever in heaven, and it is to be received on its own authority, apart from all human thoughts for or against it.

This is a grand fact, and one demanding the profound attention of every soul. Everything depends upon it. The word of God claims our belief because it is His word. If we want any authority to confirm the truth of God's word, we are in reality rejecting God's word altogether, and resting on man's word. A man may say, "How do I know that the Bible is the word of God?" We reply, It carries its own divine credentials with it; and if these credentials do not convince, all the human authority under the sun is perfectly worthless. If the whole population of the earth were to stand before me, and assure me of the truth of God's word, and that I were to believe on their authority, it would not be saving faith at all. It would be faith in men, and not faith in God; but the faith that saves is the faith that believes what God says because God says it.

It is not that we undervalue human testimony, or reject what are called the external evidences of the truth of holy scripture. All these things must go for what they are worth; they are by no means essential in laying the foundation of saving faith. We are perfectly sure that all genuine history, all true science, all sound human evidence, must go to establish the divine authenticity of the Bible; but we do not rest our faith upon them, but upon the scriptures to which they bear testimony; nor if all human evidence, all science, and every page of history, were to speak against scripture, we should utterly and absolutely reject them, and cordially, reverently, and implicitly believe it. Is this narrow? Be it so. It is the blessed narrowness in which we gladly find our pence and our portion forever. It is the narrowness that refuses to admit the weight of a leather as an addition to the word of God. If this be narrowness, we repeat it with emphasis, and from the very center of our ransomed being, let it be ours forever. If to be broad we must look to man to confirm the truth of God's word, then away with such broadness, it is the broadway that leadeth straight down to hell. No, reader, your life, your salvation, your everlasting peace, blessedness, and glory, depend upon your taking God at His word, and believing what He says because He says it. This is faith—livings saving, precious faith. May you possess it I God's word, then, most distinctly declares that man in his natural, unrenewed, unconverted state is Satan's bond-slave. It speaks of Satan as " the god of this world," as "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." It speaks of man as "led captive by the devil at his will." Hence, in Paul's commission, the third thing which the gospel is to do is to turn man from " the power of Satan to God." Thus his eyes are opened; divine light comes streaming in; the power of Satan is broken, and the delivered one finds himself, peacefully and happily, in the presence of God. Like the demoniac in Mark v., he is delivered from his ruthless tyrant, his cruel master; his chains are broken and gone; he is clothed, and in his right mind, and sitting at the feet of Jesus.

What a glorious deliverance! It is worthy of God in every aspect of it, and in all its results. The poor blind slave, led captive by the devil, is set free; and not only so, but he is brought to God, pardoned, accepted, and endowed with an eternal inheritance among the sanctified. And all this is by faith, through grace. It is proclaimed in the gospel of God to every creature under heaven—not one is excluded. The great commission, whether we read it in Luke 24 or in Acts 26, assures us that this most precious, most glorious, salvation is unto all.

Let us listen for a moment, ere we close this paper, to our apostle, as he discharges his blessed commission in the synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia. Most gladly would we transcribe the whole of his marvelous and most precious discourse, but our limited space compels us to confine ourselves to the powerful appeal at the end. "Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man"—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and glorified—" is preached"—not promised in the future, but preached now, announced, as a present reality—" unto you the remission of sins. And by him all who believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses."

From these words we learn, in the clearest possible manner, that every soul in that synagogue was called upon, there and then, to receive into his heart the blessed message which fell from the preacher's lips. Not one was excluded. " Unto you is the word of this salvation sent." If anyone had asked the apostle if the message was intended for him, what would have been the reply? " Unto you is the word of this salvation sent." Was there no preliminary question to be settled? Not one. All the preliminaries had been settled at the cross. Was there no question as to election or predestination? Not a syllable about either in the whole range of this most magnificent and comprehensive discourse.

But is there no such question? Not in that " Great Commission" whereof we speak. No doubt the grand truth of election shines in its proper place on the page of inspiration. But what is its proper and divinely appointed place? Most assuredly not in the preaching of the evangelist, but in the ministry of the teacher or pastor. When the apostle sits down to instruct believers, we hear such words as these, "Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate." And again, " Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God."

But let it never be lost sight of, when he stands up as an ambassador of Christ, the herald of salvation, he proclaims in the most absolute and unqualified manner a present, a personal, a perfect salvation to every creature under heaven; and everyone who heard him was responsible, there and then, to believe. And every one who reads him now is equally so. If anyone had presumed to tell the preacher that his hearers were not responsible, that they were powerless, and could not believe—that it was only deceiving them to call upon them to believe—what would have been his reply? We think we are warranted in saying that a full and overwhelming reply to this, and every such preposterous objection, is wrapped up in the solemn appeal with which the apostle closes his address, " Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets; Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you."

Great Commission: Part 8

In full keeping with all that has passed in review before us is the sphere of " The Great Commission," as set forth in that comprehensive clause, " Among all nations." Such was to be the wide range of those heralds whom the risen Lord was sending forth to preach "repentance and remission of sins." Theirs was, emphatically, a world-wide mission. In Matt. 10 we find something quite different. There the Lord, in sending forth the twelve apostles, " commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not."

This was to be a mission exclusively to the house of Israel. There was no message for the Gentiles, no word for the poor Samaritans. If these messengers approached a city of the uncircumcised, they were on no account to enter it. The ways of God—His dispensational dealings—demanded a circumscribed sphere for the twelve apostles sent forth by the Messiah in the days of His flesh. " The lost sheep of the house of Israel" were to be the special objects of their ministry.

But in Luke 24 all is changed. The dispensational barriers are no longer to interfere with the messengers of grace. Israel is not to be forgotten, but the Gentiles are to hear the glad tidings. The sun of God's salvation must now pour its living beams over the whole world. Not a soul is to be excluded from the blessed light. Every city, every town, every village, every hamlet, every street, lane, and alley, every hedge and highway, must be diligently and lovingly searched out and visited, so that " every creature under heaven" might hear the good news of a full and free salvation.

How like our God is all this! How worthy of His large, loving heart! He would have the tide of His salvation flowing from pole to pole, and from the river to the ends of the earth. His righteousness is unto all, and the sweet tale of His pardoning love must be wafted far and wide over a lost and guilty world. Such is His most gracious purpose, however tardy His servants may be in carrying it out.

It is of the very last importance to have a clear view as to this branch of our subject. It brings out the character of God in a very magnificent light, and it leaves man wholly without excuse. Salvation is sent to the Gentiles. There is absolutely no limit, no question, no obstacle. Like the sun in the heavens, it shines on all. If a man will persist in hiding himself in a mine or in a tunnel, so that he cannot see the sun, he has none but himself to blame. It is no defect in the sun if all do not enjoy his beams. He shines for all. And in like manner, " the grace of God that bringeth salvation unto all men hath appeared." No one need perish because he is a poor lost sinner, for " God will have all to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." "He willeth not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

And then, that not a single feature might be lacking to set forth with all possible force and fullness the royal grace which breathes in " the Great Commission," our blessed Lord does not fail to point out to His servants the remarkable spot which was to be the center of their sphere. He tells them to " begin at Jerusalem." Yes, Jerusalem, where our Lord was crucified; where every indignity that human enmity could invent was heaped upon His divine Person; where a murderer and a robber was preferred to " God manifest in the flesh;" where human iniquity had reached its culminating point in nailing the Son of God to a malefactor's cross—there the messengers were to begin their blessed work, that was to be the center of the sphere of their gracious operations, and from thence they were to travel to the utmost bounds of the habitable globe. They were to begin with "Jerusalem sinners"—with the very murderers of the Son of God, and then go forth to publish everywhere the glorious tidings, so that all might know that precious grace of God which was sufficient to meet the crimson guilt of Jerusalem itself.

How glorious is all this! The guilty murderers of the Son of God were the very first to hear the sweet tale of pardoning love, so that all men might see in them a pattern of what the grace of God and the blood of Christ can do. Truly the grace that could pardon Jerusalem sinners can pardon any one; the blood that could cleanse the betrayers and murderers of the Christ of God can cleanse any sinner outside the precincts of hell. These heralds of salvation, as they made their way from nation to nation, could tell their hearers where they had come from; they could tell of that super abounding grace of God which had commenced its operations in the guiltiest spot on the face of the earth, and which was amply sufficient to meet the very vilest of the sons of Adam.

"Sovereign grace o'er sin abounding:

Ransom'd souls the tidings swell!

'Tis a deep that knows no sounding;

Who its length or breadth can tell?"

Precious grace of God! May it be published with increased energy and clearness throughout the divinely-appointed sphere. Alas, alas, that those who know it should be so slow to make it known to others! That slowness is, most surely, not of God. He absolutely delights in the publication of His saving, pardoning grace. He tells us that the feet of the evangelist are beautiful upon the mountains. He assures us that the preaching of the cross is a sweet savor to His heart. Ought not all this to quicken our energies in the blessed work? Ought we not, in every possible way, to seek to carry out the gracious desire of the heart of God? Why are we so slow? Why so cold and indolent? Why so easily discouraged and repulsed? Why so ready to make excuses for not speaking to people about their souls?

There stands the great commission shining on the eternal page of inspiration, in all its moral grandeur—its terms, its basis, its authority, its sphere! The work is not yet done. Eighteen hundred years have rolled past since the risen Savior sent forth His messengers; and still He waits, in sweet, long-suffering mercy, not willing that any should perish. Why are we not more willing-hearted in carrying out the gracious desire of His heart? It is not by any means necessary that we should be great preachers, or powerful public speakers, in order to carry on the precious work of evangelization. What we want is a heart in communion with the heart of God, the heart of Christ, and that will surely be a heart for souls. We do not, and cannot, believe that one who is not led out in loving desire after the salvation of souls, can really be in communion with the mind of Christ. We cannot be in His presence, and not think of the souls of those around us. For whoever cared for souls as He did? Mark His marvelous path!—His ceaseless toil as a teacher and preacher!—His thirst for the salvation and blessing of souls!

And has He not left us an example that we should follow His steps? Are we doing so in this one matter of making known the blessed gospel? Are we seeking to imitate Him in His earnest diligence in seeking the lost? See Him at the well of Sychar! Mark His whole deportment! Listen to His earnest, loving words! Note the joy and refreshment of His spirit, as He sees one poor sinner receiving His message! "I have meat to eat that ye know not of;" " Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.''

We would earnestly entreat the christian reader to consider this great subject in the divine presence. We deeply feel its importance. We cannot but judge that, amid all the writing and reading, all the speaking and hearing, all the coming and going, there is a sad lack of deep-toned, earnest, solemn dealing with individual souls. How often do we rest satisfied with inviting people to come to the preaching, instead of seeking to bring them directly to Christ? How often do we rest content with the periodical preaching, instead of earnestly seeking, all the week through, to persuade souls to flee from the wrath to come? No doubt it is good to preach, and good to invite people to the preaching; but we may rest assured there is something more than all this to be done, and that something must be sought in deeper communion with the heart and mind of Christ.

Some there are who speak disparagingly of the blessed and holy work of evangelization. We tremble for them. We feel persuaded they are not in the current of the Master's mind, and hence we utterly reject their thoughts. It is to be feared that their hearts are cold in reference to an object that engages the heart of God. If so, they would need to humble themselves in His presence, and seek to get their souls restored to a true sense of the magnitude, importance, and interest of the grand question before us. At least let them beware of how they seek to discourage and hinder others whose hearts the Lord has moved to care for precious immortal souls. The present is most assuredly not the time for raising difficulties, and starting questions which can only prove stumbling-blocks in the pathway of earnest workers. It becomes us to seek, in every right way, to strengthen the hands of all who are endeavoring, according to their measure, to publish the glad tidings, and make known the unsearchable riches of Christ. Let us see that we do so, so far as in us lies; and, above all things, let us never utter a sentence calculated to hinder any one in the blessed work of winning souls to Christ.

But we must draw this paper, and this series of papers, to a close. We might do so here, wore it not that there is one more point in our subject which we feel must not be omitted, and that is the power by which "the Great Commission" was to be carried out. To leave this out would be a grand defect, a serious blank indeed; and we are the more anxious to notice it, inasmuch as the special form in which the power was communicated links itself, in a very remarkable way, with that which has been before us in this paper. If the sphere was to be " all nations," the power must be adapted thereto; and, blessed be God, so it was.

Our blessed Lord, in closing His commission to His disciples, said, " And ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." This promise was fulfilled, this power was communicated on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Ghost came down from the ascended and glorified Man, to qualify His servants for the glorious work to which He had called them. They had to " tarry" until they got the power. How could they go without it? Who but the Holy Ghost could speak adequately of the love of God, of the Person, work, and glory of Christ? Who but He could enable any one to preach repentance and remission of sins? Who but He could properly handle all the weighty subjects comprehended in " the Great Commission?" In a word, the power of the Holy Ghost is absolutely essential for every branch of christian service, and all who go to work without it will find it to be barrenness, misery, and desolation.

But we must call the reader's special attention to the form in which the Holy Ghost came down on the day of Pentecost. It is fall of deepest interest, and lets us into the precious secret of the heart of God in a most touching manner.

Let us turn to chapter 2 of the Acts of the Apostles.

"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place"—instructive and suggestive fact!—" And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost"—He had full possession of their hearts and minds, full sway over their whole moral being—blessed condition!—" And they began 10 speak with other tongues"—not in the absurd and unintelligible jargon of cunning impostors or deluded fanatics, but—"as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven"—Remarkable fact!—" Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language."—How real! How telling!—" And they were all amazed, and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were horn?"—not merely wherein we were educated—" Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God."

What a marvelous passage! How marked the coincidence! How striking and interesting all the details! God so ordered it, in His infinite wisdom and perfect grace, that there should be assembled in the city of Jerusalem, at the exact moment, people from every nation on the face of the whole earth, in order that—even should the twelve apostles fail to carry out their commission—all might hear, in the very dialect in which their mothers first whispered into their infant ears the accents of a mother's love, the precious tidings of God's salvation.

Can anything exceed this in interest? Who can fail to see in the fact here recorded that it was the loving desire of the heart of God to reach every creature under heaven with the sweet story of His grace? The world had rejected the Son of God, had crucified and slain Him; but no sooner had He taken His seat at the right hand of God, than down came the august Witness, God the Spirit, to speak to man—to every man—to speak to him, not in accents of withering denunciation, not in the thundering anathemas of judgment, but in accents of deep and tender love, to tell him of full remission of sins through the blood of the cross.

True, He called on man to judge himself, to repent, to take his only true and proper place. Why not? How could it be otherwise? Repentance is—as we have already fully shown, and earnestly insisted upon, in these papers—a universal and abiding necessity for man. But the Spirit of God came down to speak face to face with man, to tell him, in his own mother tongue, of the wonderful works of God. He did not speak to a Hebrew in Latin, or to a Roman in Greek; but He spoke to each in the very dialect in which he was born, thus proving to a demonstration—proving in the most affecting manner possible—that it was God's gracious desire to make His way to man's heart, in deepest, richest, fullest grace. All homage to His name!

How different it was when the law was to be published from Mount Sinai! If all the nations of the earth had been assembled round that fiery mount, they could not have understood one word—unless, indeed, any one happened to know the Hebrew tongue. The law was addressed to one people, it was wrapped up in one language, it was enclosed in the ark. God took no pains to publish the record of man's duty in every language under heaven. But when grace was to be published, when the glad tidings of salvation were to be sounded abroad, when testimony was to be borne to a crucified, risen, ascended, and coming Savior and Lord, then, verily, God the Holy Ghost came down, for the purpose of fitting His messengers to speak to every man in a tongue which he could understand.

Facts are powerful arguments, and assuredly the above two facts, in reference to the law and the gospel, must speak to every heart, in a manner the most convincing, of the matchless grace of God, God did not send forth heralds to publish the law to " all nations." No—this was reserved for " the Great Commission" on which we have been dwelling, and which we now earnestly commend, with all its great subjects, to the serious attention of every reader of " Things New and Old."

Great Commission: Part 1

" And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." Luke 24:44-49.

This splendid passage of holy scripture sets before us the great commission which the risen Lord entrusted to His apostles just as He was about to ascend into the heavens, having gloriously accomplished all His blessed work upon earth. It is truly a most wonderful commission, and opens up a very wide field of truth, through which we may range with much spiritual delight and profit. Whether we ponder the commission itself, its basis, its authority, its 'power, or its sphere, we shall find it all fall of most precious instruction. May the blessed Spirit guide our thoughts, while we meditate, first of all, upon

THE COMMISSION ITSELF, The apostles of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ ×were specially charged to preach "repentance and remission of sins." Let us all remember this. We are prone to forget it, to the serious damaging of our preaching, and of the souls of our hearers. Some of us are apt to overlook the first part of the commission, in our eagerness, it may be, to get to the second. This is a most serious mistake. We may rest assured that it is our truest wisdom to keep close to the veritable terms in which our blessed Lord delivered His charge to His earliest heralds. We cannot omit a single point, not to say a leading branch of the commission, without serious 10s# in every way. Our Lord is infinitely wiser and more gracious than we are, and we need not fear to preach with all possible plainness what He told His apostles to preach, namely, " repentance and remission of sins."

Now the question is, are we all careful to maintain this very important connection? Do we give sufficient prominence to the first part of the great commission? Do we preach " repentance?"

We are not now inquiring what repentance is; that we shall do, if God permit. But, whatever it is, do we preach it? That our Lord commanded His apostles to preach it is plain; and not only so, but He preached it Himself, as we read in Mark 1: " Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe the gospel."

Let us carefully note this record. Let all preachers note it. Our divine Master called upon sinners to repent and believe the gospel. Some would have us to believe that it is a mistake to call upon persons dead in trespasses and sins to do anything. "How," it is argued, " can those who arc dead repent? They are incapable of any spiritual movement. They must first get the power ere they can either repent or believe."

What is our reply to all this? A very simple one indeed—our Lord knows better than all the theologians' in the world what ought to be preached. He knows all about man's condition—his guilt, his misery, his spiritual death, his utter helplessness, his total inability to think a single right thought, to utter a single right word, to do a single right act; and yet He called upon" men to repent. This is quite enough for us. It is no part of our business to seek to reconcile seeming differences. It may seem to us difficult to reconcile man's utter powerlessness with his responsibility; but " God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain." It is our happy privilege, and our bounden duty, to believe what He says, and to do what He tells us. This is true wisdom, and it yields solid peace.

Our Lord preached repentance, and He commanded His apostles to preach it; and they did so constantly. Hearken to Peter on the day of Pentecost. " Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." And again, 'Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." Hearken to Paul also, as he stood on Mars' Hill, at Athens: " But now God commandeth all men everywhere to repent; because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance (πιστιν) unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." So also, in his touching address to the elders of Ephesus, he says, " I kept back nothing that was profitable, [blessed servant!] but have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, testifying, both to the Jews, and also the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." And again, in his address to king Agrippa, he says, " Whereupon, Ο king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, but showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance."

Now, in the face of this body of evidence—with the example of our Lord and His apostles so fully and clearly before us—may we not very lawfully inquire whether there is not a serious defect in much of our modern preaching? Do we preach repentance as we ought? Do we assign to it the place which it gets in the preaching of our Lord and of His early heralds? It is vanity and folly, or worse, to talk about its being legal to preach repentance, to say that it tarnishes the luster of the gospel of the grace of God to call upon men dead in trespasses and sins to repent, and do works meet for repentance. Was Paul legal in his preaching? Did he not preach a clear, full, rich, and divine gospel? Have we got in advance of Paul? Do we preach a clearer gospel than he? How utterly preposterous the notion! Well, but he preached repentance. He told his hearers that God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Docs this mar the gospel of the grace of God? Does it detract from its heavenly fullness and freeness? As well might you tell a farmer that it lowered the quality of his grain to plow the fallow ground before sowing.

No doubt it is of the very last possible importance to preach the gospel of the grace of God, or, if you please, the gospel of the glory, in all its fullness, clearness, and power. We are to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ—to declare the whole counsel of God—to present the righteousness of God and His salvation, without limit, condition, or hindrance of any kind—to publish the good news to every creature under heaven.

We should, in the very strongest possible manner, insist upon this. But at the same time we must jealously keep to the terms of "the great commission." We cannot depart the breadth of a hair from these without serious damage to our testimony, and to the souls of our hearers. If we fail to preach repentance, we are " keeping back" something " profitable." What should we say to a husbandman, if we saw him scattering his precious grain along the beaten highway? We should justly pronounce him out of his mind. The plowshare must do its work. The fallow ground must be broken up ere the seed is sown: and we may rest assured that, as in the kingdom of nature, so in the kingdom of grace, the plowing must precede the sowing. The ground must be duly prepared for the seed, else the operations will prove altogether defective. Let the gospel be preached as God has given it to us in His word. Let it not be shorn of one of its moral glories; let it flow forth as it comes from the deep fountain of the heart of God, through the channel of Christ's finished work, on the authority of the Holy Ghost. All this is not only most fully admitted, but peremptorily insisted upon; but at the same time we must never forget that our Lord and Master called upon men to "repent and believe the gospel;" that He strictly enjoined it upon His holy apostles to preach repentance; and that the blessed apostle Paul, the chief of apostles, the profoundest teacher the church has ever known, did preach repentance, and call upon men everywhere to repent, and do works meet for repentance.

And here it may be well for us to inquire what this repentance is which occupies such a prominent place in "the great commission," and in the preaching of our Lord and of His apostles. If it be—as it most surely is—an abiding and universal necessity for man—if God commands all men everywhere to repent—if repentance is inseparably linked with remission of sins—how needful it is that we should seek to understand its true nature.

What, then, is repentance? May the Spirit Himself instruct us by the word of God! He alone can. We are all liable to err—some of us have erred—in our thoughts on this most weighty subject. We are in danger, while seeking to avoid error on one side, of falling into error on the other. We are poor, feeble, ignorant, erring creatures, whose only security is in our being kept continually at the feet of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. He alone can teach us what repentance is, as well as what it is not. We feel most fully assured that the enemy of souls and of the truth has succeeded in giving repentance a false place in the creeds, and confessions, and public teachings of Christendom; and the conviction of this makes it all the more needful for us to keep close to the living teachings of holy scripture.

We are not aware of any formal definition of the subject furnished by the Holy Ghost. He does not tell us in so many words what repentance is; but the more we study the word in reference to the great question, the more deeply we feel convinced that true repentance involves the solemn judgment of ourselves, our condition, and our ways, in the presence of God; and, further, that this judgment is not a transient feeling, but an abiding condition—not a certain exercise to be gone through as a sort of title to the remission of sins, but the deep and settled habit of the soul, giving seriousness, gravity, tenderness, brokenness, and profound humility, which shall overlap, underlie, and characterize our entire course.

We seriously question if this aspect of the subject is sufficiently understood. Let not the reader mistake us. We do not mean for a moment to teach that the soul should be always bowed down under the sense of un-forgiven sin. Far be the thought! We think it will be found that our teaching in the pages of '"Things New and Old," for the last nineteen years, is the very reverse of such a thought. But we greatly fear that some of us, in running away from legality on the question of repentance, have fallen into levity. This is a serious error. We may depend upon it that levity is no remedy for legality were it proposed as such, we should have no hesitation in pronouncing the remedy much worse than the disease. Thank God we have His own sovereign remedy for levity, on the one hand, and legality on the other. " Truth" insisting upon " repentance,' is the remedy for the former. " Grace," publishing "remission of sins," is the remedy for the latter. And we cannot but believe that the more profound our repentance, the fuller will be our enjoyment of remission.

We are inclined to judge that there is a sad lack of depth and seriousness in much of our modern preaching. In our anxiety to make the gospel simple, and salvation easy, we fail to press on the consciences of our hearers the holy claims of truth. If a preacher now-a-days were to call upon his hearers to "repent and turn to God, and to do works meet for repentance," he would, in certain circles, be pronounced legal, ignorant, below the mark, and such like. And yet this was precisely what the blessed apostle Paul did, as he himself tells us. Will any of our modern evangelists have the temerity to say that Paul was a legal or an ignorant preacher? We trust not. Paul carried with him the full, clear, precious gospel of God—the gospel of the grace, and the gospel of the glory. He preached the kingdom of God—He unfolded the glorious mystery of the church—yea, that mystery was specially com-mi lied to him.

But let all preachers remember that Paul preached repentance. He called upon sinners to judge themselves—to repent in dust and ashes, as was meet and right they should. He himself had learned the true meaning of repentance. He had not only judged himself once in a way, but he lived in the spirit of self-judgment. It was the habit of his soul, the attitude of his heart, and it gave a depth, solidity, seriousness, and solemnity to his preaching of which we modern preachers know but little. We do not believe that Paul's repentance ended with the three days and three nights of blindness after his conversion. He was a self-judged man all his life long. Did this hinder his enjoyment of the grace of God or of the preciousness of Christ? Nay, it gave depth and intensity to his enjoyment.

All this, we feel persuaded, demands our most serious consideration. We greatly dread the light, airy, superficial style of much of our modern preaching. It sometimes seems to us as if the gospel were brought into utter contempt, and the sinner led to suppose that he is really conferring a very great favor upon God in accepting salvation at His hands. Now we must solemnly protest against this. It is dishonoring to God, and lowering His gospel; and, as might be expected, its moral effect on those who profess to be converted is most deplorable. It superinduces levity, self-indulgence, worldliness, vanity, and folly. Sin is not felt to be the dreadful thing it is in the sight of God. Self is not judged. The world is not given up. The gospel that is preached is what maybe called " salvation made easy" to the flesh—the most terrible thing we can possibly conceive—terrible in its effect upon the soul—terrible in its results in the life. God's sentence upon the flesh and the world gets no place in the preaching to which we refer. People are offered a salvation which leaves self and the world practically unjudged, and the consequence is, those who profess to be converted by this gospel exhibit a lightness and unsubduedness perfectly shocking to people of serious piety.

It will, perhaps, be said that those sad results of which we speak are owing to the fact that the heavenly πάο of the gospel is left out—that a glorified Christ is not preached—that a full resurrection gospel is not proclaimed—that man and his need are made more prominent than God and His glory—that it is more a bringing Christ down into our circumstances than bringing us up into God's presence, in association with a risen and glorified Christ.

Well, there may be a good deal in this, and we are well disposed to admit a broad margin in which to in-κort all that has to be said on this side of the question, out we must still fall back on the weighty fact that the blessed apostle Paul—who most surely preached the gospel in all its fullness and in all its power—insisted upon repentance. This cannot be set aside. Man must take his true place before God, and that is the place of self-judgment, contrition of heart, real sorrow for sin, and true confession. It is here the gospel meets him. The fullness of God ever waits on an empty vessel, and a truly repentant soul is the empty vessel into which all the fullness of the grace of God can flow in saving power. The Holy Ghost will make the sinner feel and own his real condition. It is He alone who can do so; but He uses preaching to this end. He brings the word of God to bear on man's conscience. The word is His hammer, wherewith He breaks the rock in pieces—His plowshare, wherewith He breaks up the fallow ground. He makes the furrow, and then casts in the incorruptible seed, to germinate and fructify to the glory of God. True, the furrow, how deep so ever it may be, can produce no fruit. It is the seed, and not the furrow; but there must be the furrow, for all that.

It is not, need we say? that there is anything meritorious in the sinner's repentance. To say so could only be regarded as the most monstrous audacity. Repentance is not a good work whereby the sinner merits the favor of God. All this view of the subject is utterly and fatally false. True repentance is the discovery and hearty confession of our utter ruin and guilt. It is the finding out that my whole life has been a lie, and that I myself am a liar. This is serious work. There is no flippancy or levity when a soul is brought to this. A penitent soul in the presence of God is a solemn reality; and we cannot but feel that were we more governed by the terms of " the great commission," we should more solemnly, earnestly, and constantly call upon men " to repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance," we should preach "repentance" as well as "the remission of sins." (To be continued, if the Lord will)

Great Commission: Part 6

We have seen that the basis of " The Great Commission" is the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This must never be lost sight of. " It behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day." It is a risen Christ that sends forth His heralds to preach " repentance and remission of sins." The incarnation and the crucifixion are great cardinal truths of Christianity; but it is only in resurrection they are made available for us in any way. Incarnation—precious and priceless mystery though it be—could not form the groundwork of remission of sins, for 1 ' without shedding of blood is no remission." (Heb. 9:22.) We are justified by the blood, and reconciled by the death, of Christ. But it is in resurrection that all this is made good unto us. Christ was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification. (Rom. 4:25; 5:9, 10.) 'For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures." 1 Corinthians xv. 3, 4.

Hence, therefore, it is of the very last possible importance for all who would carry out our Lord's commission, to know in their own souls, and to set forth in their preaching, the grand truth of resurrection. The most cursory glance at the preaching of the earliest heralds of the gospel will suffice to show the prominent place which they gave to this glorious fact.

Hearken to Peter on the day of Pentecost, or rather to the Holy Ghost, just come down from the risen, ascended, and glorified Savior. " Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know. Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death; because it was not possible that he should beholden of it.....This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear." (Acts 2) So also in chapter iii.: " The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.... unto you first, God having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, by turning away every one of you from his iniquities." " And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them. Being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead"

Their preaching was characterized by the prominent place which it assigned to the glorious, powerful, and telling fact of resurrection. True, there was the full and clear statement of incarnation and crucifixion, with the great moral bearings of these facts. How could it be otherwise? The Son of God had to become a man to die, in order that, by death, He might glorify God as to the entire question of sin; destroy the power of Satan: rob death of its sting, and the grave of its victory; put away forever the sins of his people, and associate them with Himself in the power of eternal life, in the new creation, where all things are of God, and where a single trace of sin or sorrow can never enter. Eternal and universal homage and adoration to His peerless name!

But let all preachers remember the place which resurrection holds in apostolic preaching and teaching. "With great power gave the apostles witness." Of what? Incarnation or crucifixion merely? Not so; but " of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." This was the stupendous fact that glorified God and His Son Jesus Christ. It was this that attested, in the view of all created intelligences, the divine complacency in the work of redemption. It was this that demonstrated, in the most marvelous way, the complete and eternal overthrow of the kingdom of Satan, and all the powers of darkness. It was this that declared the full and everlasting deliverance of all who believe in Jesus—their deliverance, not only from all the consequences of their sins, but from this present evil world, and from every link that bound them to that old creation which lies under the power of evil.

No marvel, therefore, if the apostles, filled as they were with the Holy Ghost, persistently and powerfully presented the magnificent truth of resurrection. Hear them again before the council—a council composed of the great religious leaders and guides of the people. " The God of our Fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, and hanged on a tree." They were at issue with God on the all-important question as to His Son. They had slain Him, but God raised Him from the dead. " Him hath God exalted with his right hand, a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins."

So also in Peter's address to the Gentiles, in the house of Cornelius, speaking of Jesus of Nazareth, he says, " whom they slew, and hanged on a tree. Him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead."

The Holy Ghost is careful to set forth the weighty and, to us, profoundly interesting fact, that " God raised up his Son Jesus." This fact has a double bearing. It proves that God is at issue with the world, seeing He has raised, exalted, and glorified the very One whom they slew, and hanged on a tree. But, blessed throughout all ages be His holy name! it proves that He has found eternal rest and satisfaction as to us, and all that was, or could be, against us, seeing He has raised up the very One who took our place, and stood charged with all our sin and guilt.

But all this will come more fully out as we proceed with our proofs.

Let us now listen for a moment to Paul's splendid address in the synagogue at Antioch. " Men, brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent. For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath-day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulcher. But God raised him from the dead. And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he said in this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption; but he whom God raised again saw no corruption."

Then follows the powerful appeal, which, though not bearing upon our present line of argument, we cannot omit in this place. " Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets: Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish; for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in nowise believe, though a man declare it unto you." Acts 13:26-41.

We shall close our series of proofs from the Acts of the Apostles by a brief quotation from Paul's marvelous address at Athens. " Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God overlooked; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent; because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all, in that he hath raised him from the dead." Acts 17

This is a very remarkable and deeply solemn passage. The proof that God is going to judge the world in righteousness—a proof offered to all—is that He has raised His ordained Man from the dead. He does not here name the Man; but at verse 18 we are told that some of the Athenians deemed the apostle a setter forth of strange gods, " because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection."

From all this it is perfectly plain that the blessed apostle Paul gave a most prominent place in all his preachings to the glorious truth of resurrection. Whether he addresses a congregation of Jews in the synagogue at Antioch, or an assembly of Gentiles on Mars' Hill at Athens, he presents a risen Christ. In a word, he was characterized by the fact that he preached, not merely the incarnation and the crucifixion, but the resurrection; and this, too, in all its mighty moral bearings—its bearing upon man in his individual state and destiny; its bearing upon the world as a whole, in its history in the past, its moral condition in the present, and its certain doom in the future; in its bearing upon the believer, proving his absolute, complete, and eternal justification before God, and his thorough deliverance from this present evil world.

And we have to bear in mind that in apostolic preaching the resurrection was not presented as a mere doctrine, but as a living, telling, mighty, moral fact—a fact, the magnitude of which is beyond all power of human utterance or thought. The apostles, in carrying out " the great commission" of their Lord, pressed the stupendous fact that God has raised Jesus from the dead—had raised the Man who was nailed to the cross, and buried in the grave. In short, they preached a resurrection gospel. Their preaching was governed by these words, " It was necessary that Christ should suffer, and rise from the dead the third day."

We shall now turn for a moment to the epistles, and see the wondrous way in which the Holy Ghost unfolds and applies the fact of resurrection. But ere doing so we would call the reader's attention to a passage which is sadly misunderstood and misapplied. The apostle, in writing to the Corinthians, says, " We preach Christ crucified." These words are continually quoted for the purpose of casting a damper on those who earnestly desire to advance in the knowledge of divine things. But a moment's serious attention to the context would be sufficient to show the true meaning of the apostle. Did he confine himself to the fact of the crucifixion? The bare idea, in the face of the body of scripture which we have quoted, is simply absurd. The fact is, the glorious truth of resurrection shines out in all his discourses.

What, then, does the apostle mean when he declares, " We preach Christ crucified?" Simply this, that the Christ whom he preached was the One whom the world had crucified. He was a rejected, outcast Christ—One for whom the world considered a malefactor's gibbet quite good enough. What a fact for the poor Corinthians, so full of vanity and love for this world's wisdom! A crucified Christ was the One whom Paul preached, "to the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but to those that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

Remarkable words! words divinely suited to people prone to boast themselves in the so-called wisdom and greatness of this world—the vain reasonings and imaginations of the poor human mind, which all perish in a moment. All the wisdom of God, all His power, all His greatness, all His glory, all that He is, in short, cornea out in a crucified Christ. The cross confounds the world, vanquishes Satan and all the powers of darkness, saves all who believe, and forms the solid foundation of the everlasting and universal glory of God.

Enough, we trust, has been said to prove to the reader that there is neither moral force nor spiritual intelligence in the use so frequently made of the words, "We preach Christ crucified." Indeed it is directly contrary to the entire body of apostolic preaching and teaching, and its effect upon the souls of those who accept it is pre-eminently mischievous.

We shall now turn for a moment to a very beautiful passage in Rom. 4, in which the inspired writer handles the subject of resurrection in a most edifying way for us. Speaking of Abraham, he says, "Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb; he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief,"—which is always sure to stagger—" but was strong in faith, giving glory to God"—as faith always does. " And being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness." And then, lest any should say that all this applied only to Abraham, who was such a devoted, holy, remarkable man, the inspiring Spirit adds, with singular grace and sweetness, " Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him, but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe in him that"—what? Gave His Son? Bruised His Son on the cross? Not merely this, but " that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead,"

Here lies the grand point of the apostle's blessed and powerful argument. We must, if we would have settled peace, believe in God as the One who raised up Jesus from the dead, and who in so doing proved Himself friendly to us, and proved, too, His infinite satisfaction in the work of the cross. Jesus, having been " delivered for our offenses," could not be where He now is, if a single one of these offenses remained unatoned for. But, blessed forever be the God of all grace, He raised from among the dead the One who had been delivered for our offenses; and to all who believe in Him righteousness shall be reckoned. " It behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day." See how this glorious theme, the basis of the great commission, expands under our gaze as we pursue our study of it!

One more brief quotation shall close this paper. In Heb. 13 we read, "Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant."

This is uncommonly fine. The God of judgment met the Sin-bearer at the cross, and there, with Him, entered thoroughly into, and definitively settled, the question of sin. And then, in glorious proof that all was done—sin atoned for—guilt put away—Satan silenced—God glorified—all divinely accomplished, " the God of peace' entered the scene, and raised from the dead our Lord Jesus, that " great Shepherd of the sheep."

Beloved reader, how glorious is all this! How enfranchising to all who simply believe! Jesus is risen. His sufferings are over forever. God has exalted Him. Eternal Justice has wreathed His blessed brow with a diadem of glory; and, wondrous fact! that very diadem is the eternal demonstration that all who believe are justified from all things, and accepted in a risen and glorified Christ. Eternal and universal hallelujahs to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost!

(To be continued in our next, if the Lord will.)

Great Commission: Part 7

We are now called to consider the deeply important subject of the authority on which the great commission proceeds. This we have presented to us in that one commanding and most comprehensive sentence, " It is written"—a sentence which ought to be engraved, in characters deep and broad, on the tablet of every Christian's heart.

Nothing can possibly be more interesting or edifying than to note the way in which our blessed Lord, on all occasions and under all circumstances, exalts the holy scriptures. He, though God over all blessed forever, and as such the Author of all scripture, yet, having taken His place as man on the earth, He plainly sets forth what is the bounden duty of every man, and that is to be absolutely, completely, and abidingly governed by the authority of scripture. See Him in conflict with Satan. How does He meet him? Simply as each one of us should meet him, by the written word. It could be no example to us had our Lord vanquished him by the putting forth of divine power. Of course He could, there and then, have consigned him to the bottomless pit or the lake of fire, but that would have been no example for us, inasmuch as we could not so overcome. But, on the other hand, when we find the blessed One referring to holy scripture—when we find Him appealing, again and again, to that divine authority—when we find Him putting the adversary to flight simply by the written word, we learn in the most impressive manner the place, the value, and the authority of the holy scriptures.

And is it not of the very last possible importance to have this great lesson impressed upon us at the present moment? Unquestionably it is. If ever there was a, moment in the history of the church of God when it behooved Christians to bow down their whole moral being to this very lesson, it is the moment through which we are just now passing. On all hands the divine authority, integrity, plenary inspiration, and all-sufficiency of holy scripture are called in question. The word of God is openly insulted and flung aside. Its integrity is called in question, and that, too, in quarters where we should least expect it. At our colleges and universities our young men are continually assailed by infidel attacks upon the blessed word of God. Men who are in total spiritual blindness, and who therefore cannot possibly know anything whatever about divine things, and are utterly incompetent to give an opinion on the subject of holy scripture, have the cool audacity to insult the sacred volume, to pronounce the five books of Moses an imposture, to assert that Moses never wrote them at all.

What is the opinion of such men worth? Not worth the weight of a feather. Who would think of going to a man who was born in a coal-mine, and had never seen the sun, to get his judgment as to the properties of light, or the effect of the sun's beams upon the human constitution? Who would think of going to one who was born blind to get his opinion upon colors, or the effect of light and shade? Surely no one in his senses. Well, then, with how much more moral force may we not ask, who would think of going to an unconverted man—a man dead in trespasses and sins—a man spiritually blind, wholly ignorant of things divine, spiritual, and heavenly—who would think for a moment of going to such an one for a judgment on the weighty question of holy scripture? And if such an one were audacious enough, in ignorant self-confidence, to offer an opinion on such a subject, what man in his sober senses would think of giving the slightest heed?

It will, perhaps, be said, "the illustration does not apply." Why not? We admit it fails in force, but most certainly not in its moral application. Is it not a commonly received axiom amongst us, that no man has any right to give an opinion on a subject of which he is totally ignorant? No doubt. Well, what does the blessed apostle say as to the unconverted man? We must quote the whole context for the reader. It is morally grand, and its interest and value just now are unspeakable.

" And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. That your faith"—mark these words, beloved reader—" should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect; yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory. Which none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit"—otherwise they could not possibly be known—" for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we"—all true believers, all God's children—"have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual"—or communicating spiritual things through a spiritual medium. " But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; neither can he know them"—be he ever so wise and learned—"because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." 1 Cor. 2:1-16.

We dare not offer an apology for giving so lengthened an extract from the word of God. We deem it invaluable, not only because it proves that it is only by divine teaching that divine things can be understood, but also because it completely withers up all man's pretensions to give judgment as to scripture. If the natural man cannot know the things of the Spirit of God, then it is perfectly plain that all infidel attacks upon the word of God are absolutely unworthy of the very smallest attention. In fact all infidel writers, be they ever so clever, ever so wise, ever so learned, are put out of court; they are not to be listened to for a moment. The judgment of an unconverted man in reference to the holy scriptures is more worthless by far than the judgment of an uneducated plowman, as to the use of the differential calculus, or the truth of the Copernican system. As to each, we have only to say, he knows nothing whatever about the matter. His thoughts are absolutely good for nothing.

But how truly delightful and refreshing to turn from man's worthless notions, and see the way in which our blessed Lord Jesus Christ prized and used the holy scriptures! In His conflict with Satan, He appeals, three times over, to the book of Deuteronomy. " It is written" is His one simple and unanswerable reply to the suggestions of the enemy. He does not reason. He does not argue or explain. He does not refer to His own personal feelings, evidences, or experiences. He does not argue from the great facts of the opened heavens, the descending Spirit, the voice of the Father, precious and real as all these things were. He simply takes His stand upon the divine and eternal authority of the holy scriptures, and of that portion of the scriptures in particular which modern infidels have audaciously attacked. He uses as His authority that which they are not afraid to pronounce an imposture! How dreadful for them! What will be their end, unless they repent?

But not only did the Son of God—Himself, as God, the Author of every line of holy scripture—use the word of God as His only weapon against the enemy, but He made it also the basis and the material of His public ministry. When His conflict in the wilderness was over, " He returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day, and stood up for to read"—His custom was to read the scriptures publicly. "And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias."—Here He puts His seal upon the prophet Isaiah, as before upon the law of Moses.—" And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Luke 4

Let us turn now to that most solemn parable of the rich man and Lazarus, at the close of Luke 16, in which we have a most splendid testimony, from the Master's own lips, to the integrity, value, and surpassing importance of " Moses and the prophets"—the very portions of the divine word which infidels impiously assail. The rich man in the midst of the flames of hell—alas! no longer rich, but miserably and eternally poor—entreats Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his five brethren, lest they also should come into that place of ineffable torment. Mark the reply! Mark it, all ye infidels, rationalists, and skeptics! Mark it, all ye who are in danger of being deluded and turned aside by the impudent and blasphemous suggestions of infidelity! " Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them" Yes; "Hear them"—hear those very writings which infidels tell us are not divinely inspired at all, but documents palmed upon us by impostors pretending to inspiration. Assuredly the rich man knew better; indeed the devil himself knows better. There is no thought of calling in question the genuineness of " Moses and the prophets;" but perhaps "if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent." Hear the weighty rejoinder! "And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."

Now, we must confess we rejoice exceedingly in the grandeur of this testimony. Nothing can be clearer, nothing higher, nothing more thoroughly confirmatory, as to the supreme authority and divine integrity of " Moses and the prophets." We have the blessed Lord Himself setting His seal to the two grand divisions of Old Testament scripture; and hence we may, with all possible confidence, commit our souls to the authority of these holy writings; and not only to Moses and the prophets, but to the whole canon of inspiration, inasmuch as Moses and the prophets are so largely and so constantly quoted everywhere, are so intimately, yea, indissolubly, bound up with every part of the New Testament, that all must stand or fall together.

But we must pass on, and turn for a moment to the last chapter of Luke—that precious section which contains " the great commission" whereof we speak. We might refer, with profit and blessing, to those occasions in which our blessed Lord, in His interviews with Pharisees, Sadducees, and lawyers, ever and only appeals to the holy scriptures. In short, whether in conflict with men or devils, whether speaking in private or in public, whether for His public ministry, or for His private walk, we find the perfect Man, the Lord from heaven, always putting the very highest honor upon the writings of Moses and the prophets, thus commending them to us in all their divine integrity, and giving us the very fullest and most blessed encouragement to commit our souls, for time and eternity, with absolute confidence, to those peerless writings.

But we turn to Luke 24, and listen to the glowing words uttered in the ears of the two bewildered travelers to Emmaus—words which are the sure and blessed remedy for all bewilderment—the perfect solution of every honest difficulty—the divine and all-satisfying answer to every upright inquiry. We do not quote the words of the perplexed disciples; but here is he Master's reply. " Then said he unto them, Ο fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!" Alas! now-a-days a man is counted a fool if he does believe all that the prophets have spoken. In many learned circles, yea, and in not a few religious circles likewise, the man who avows—as every true man ought—his hearty belief in every line of holy scripture, is almost sure to be met with a sneer of contempt. It is deemed clever to doubt the genuineness of scripture—fatal, detestable cleverness! from which may the good Lord deliver us!—cleverness which is sure to lead the soul that is ensnared by it down into the dark and dreary abyss of atheism, and the darker and more dreary abyss of hell. From all such cleverness, we again say, and say it from the profoundest depths of our moral being, may God, in His mercy, deliver us and all our young people!

Beloved reader, have we not much cause to bless the Lord for these words of His addressed to His poor perplexed ones on their way to Emmaus? They may seem severe; but it is the necessary severity of a pure, a perfect, and a divinely wise love. "0 fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And"—mark these words!—" beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." He Himself—all homage to His glorious Person!—is the divine center of all the things contained in the scriptures from cover to cover. He is the golden chain that binds into one marvelous and magnificent whole every part of the inspired volume, from Genesis to Revelation. Hence the man that touches a single section of the sacred canon is guilty of the heinous sin of seeking to overthrow the word of God; and of such a man, even charity itself must say, he knows neither the Christ of God, nor God Himself.

The man who dares to tamper in any way with the word of God has taken the first step on that inclined plane that leads inevitably down to eternal perdition. Let men beware, then, how they speak against the scriptures; and if some will speak, let others beware how they listen. If there were no infidel listeners, there would be few infidel lecturers. How awful to think that there should be either the one or the other in this our highly-favored land! May God have mercy upon them, and open their eyes, ere it be too late. Five minutes in hell will quash forever all the infidel theories that ever were propounded in this world. Oh! the egregious folly of infidelity!

We return to our chapter, which furnishes one more proof of the place assigned by our risen Lord to the holy scriptures. After having manifested Himself, in infinite grace and tranquillizing power, to His troubled disciples; having shown them His hands and His feet, and assured them of His personal identity by eating in their presence, " He said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things mast be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written"

Here again we have the divine seal put upon all the grand divisions of the Old Testament. This is most comforting and strengthening for all pious lovers of scripture. To find our Lord Himself, on all occasions, and under all circumstances, referring to scripture, using it at all times, and for all purposes, feeding upon it Himself, and commending it to others, wielding it as the sword of the Spirit, bowing to its holy authority in all things, appealing to it as the only perfect standard, test, and touchstone, the only infallible guide for man in this world, the only unfailing light amid all the surrounding moral gloom—all this is comforting and encouraging in the very highest degree, and it fills our hearts with deepest praise to the Father of mercies who has so provided for us in all our weakness and need.

Here we might close this branch of our subject, but we feel bound to furnish our readers with two more uncommonly fine illustrations of our thesis: one from the Acts, and one from the epistles. In Acts 24 the apostle Paul, in his address to Felix, thus expresses himself as to the ground of his faith. " But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets" Will anyone dare to say that Paul was an ignorant fool, or a clever knave? Alas! for the man who could either say it or think it. Well, then, he reverently believed in Moses and the prophets. He fully accepted the Old Testament scriptures as the solid foundation of his faith, and as the divine authority for his entire course. Now how did Paul know that the scriptures were given of God? He knew it in the only way in which any one can know it, namely, by divine teaching. God alone can give the knowledge that the holy scriptures are His own very revelation to man. If He does not give it, no one can; if He does, no one need. If I want human evidence to accredit the word of God, it is not the word of God to me. The authority on which I receive it is higher than the word itself. Supposing I could, by reason or human learning, work my way to the rational conclusion that the Bible is the word of God, then my faith would merely stand in the wisdom of man, and not "in the power of God. Such a faith is worthless; it does not link me with God, and therefore leaves me unsaved, unblessed, uncertain. It leaves me without God, without Christ, without hope. Saving faith is believing what God says, because He says it, and this faith is wrought in the soul by the Holy Spirit. Intellectual faith is a cold, lifeless, worthless faith, which only deceives and puffs up; it can never save, sanctify, or satisfy.

We turn now to one of the very finest statements within the covers of the divine volume, namely, 2 Timothy iii. 14-17. The aged apostle, at the close of his marvelous career, from his prison at Rome, looking back at the whole of his ministry, looking around at the failure and ruin so sadly apparent on every side, looking forward to the terrible consummation of the " last days," and looking beyond all to " the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give in that day" thus addresses his beloved son, "But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned; and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect (αρτι09), thoroughly furnished unto all good works"

All this is unspeakably precious to every true lover of the word of God. The place here assigned, and the virtues here attributed, to the holy scriptures arc beyond all price. In short, it is utterly impossible to overstate the value and importance of the foregoing quotation. It is deeply touching to find the revered and beloved old veteran, in the full power of the Holy Ghost, recalling Timothy to the days of his childhood, when, at the knees of his pious mother, he drank at the pure fountain of inspiration. How did the dear child know that these holy writings were the word of God? He knew it just in the same way that the blessed apostle himself knew it, by their divine power and effect upon his heart and conscience, through the Holy Ghost. Did he want any human evidence? Did the holy scriptures need man's credentials? How monstrous the thought! What an insult to the dignity of scripture to imagine that any human seal or guarantee is necessary to accredit it to the soul! Do we want a Butler or a Paley to assure us that God has spoken to us in His word? Do we want the authority of the church, the judgment of the Fathers, the decrees of councils, the consent of the doctors, the decision of the universities, to accredit the word of God? Far away be the thought! Who would think of bringing out a flashlight at noon to prove that the sun shines, or to bring home its beams, in their genial virtue, to the human frame? What son would think of taking his father's letter to an ignorant crossing-sweeper to have it accredited and interpreted to his heart?

These figures are feebleness itself when used to illustrate the egregious folly of submitting the holy scriptures to the judgment of any human mind. No, reader, the word of God speaks for itself. It carries its own powerful credentials with it. Its own internal evidences are amply sufficient for every pious, right-minded, humble child of God. It needs no letter of commendation from men. No doubt external evidences have their value and their interest. Human testimony must go for what it is worth. We may rest assured that the more thoroughly all human evidence is sifted, and the nearer all human testimony approaches to the truth, the more fully and distinctly will all concur in demonstrating the genuineness and integrity of our precious Bible. And, further, we must declare our deep and settled conviction that no infidel theory can hold water for a moment; no infidel argument can pass muster with an honest mind. We invariably find that all infidel assaults upon the Bible recoil upon the heads of those who make them. Infidel writers make fools of themselves, and leave the divine volume just where it always was, and where it always will be, like an impregnable rock, against which the waves of infidel thought dash themselves in contemptible impotency.

There stands the word of God, in its divine majesty, in its heavenly power, in its beautiful simplicity, in its matchless glory, in its unfathomed, because unfathomable, depths, in its never-failing freshness and power of adaptation, in its marvelous comprehensiveness, in its vastness of scope, its perfect unity, its thorough uniqueness. The Bible stands alone. There is nothing like it in the wide world of literature; and if anything further were needed to prove that that book which we call " The Bible" is, in very deed, the living and eternal word of God, it may be found in the ceaseless efforts of the devil to prove that it is not.

"Forever, Ο Lord, thy word is settled in heaven" What remains, beloved reader, for thee? Just this, " Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I may not sin against thee." Thus it stands, blessed be His holy name; and when we have His word hid in the depths of our hearts, the theories and the arguments, the reasonings or the ravings, the questionings and the conclusions, of skeptics, rationalists, and infidels, will be to us of less moment by far than the pattering of rain upon the window.

Thus much as to the weighty question of the " authority" upon which the great commission proceeds. The immense importance of the subject, and the special character of the moment through which we are passing, must account for the unusual length of this article. We feel profoundly thankful for an opportunity of bearing our feeble testimony to the power, authority, all-sufficiency, and divine glory of " the holy scriptures." " Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!"

(To be concluded in our next, if the Lord will)

Great Commission: Part 4

Having, in former papers, dwelt a little upon the terms of "The Great Commission," we shall now, in dependence upon divine teaching, seek to unfold the truth as to the basis. It is of the very last possible importance to have a clear understanding of the solid ground on which "repentance and remission of sins" are announced to every creature under heaven. This we have distinctly laid down in our Lord's own words, " It behooved Christ to suffer, and in to rise from the dead the third day."

Here lies, in its impregnable strength, the foundation of the glorious commission whereof we speak. God blessed forever be His holy Name, has been pleased to set before us, with all possible clearness, the moral ground on which He commands all men everywhere! to repent, and the righteous ground on which He can proclaim, to every repentant soul, the perfect remission of sins.

We have already had occasion to guard the reader against the false notion that any amount of repentance, on the part of the sinner, could possibly form the meritorious ground of forgiveness. No doubt, the vast majority of those who read "Things New and Old' are, through the mercy of God, clear on this point. But, inasmuch as we write for those who may be ignorant of the very elements of the gospel, we feel bound to put things in the very simplest possible form so that all may understand. We all know how prone the human heart is to build upon something of our own, if not upon good works, at least upon our penitential exercises. If ever, it becomes our bounden duty to set forth the precious truth of the atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the only righteous ground of the forgiveness of sins.

True, all men are commanded to repent. It is meet and right they should. How could it be otherwise? How can we look at that cursed tree on which the Son of God bore the judgment of sin, and not sec the absolute necessity of repentance? How can we hearken to that solemn cry, breaking forth from amid the shadows of Calvary, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," and not own, from the deepest depths of our moral being, the moral fitness of repentance? If indeed sin is so terrible, so absolutely hateful to God, so perfectly intolerable to His holy nature, that He had to bruise His well-beloved and only-begotten Son on the cross, in order to put it away, does it not well become the sinner to judge himself, and repent in dust raid ashes'? Had the blessed Lord to endure the hiding of God's countenance, because of our sins, and we not be broken, self-judged and subdued on account of these sins? Shall we, with impenitent heart, hear the glad tidings of full and free forgiveness of sins—a forgiveness which cost nothing less than the unutterable horrors and agonies of the cross? Shall we, with flippant tongue, profess to have peace—a peace purchased by the ineffable sufferings of the Son of God? If it was absolutely necessary that Christ should suffer for our sins, is it not morally fitting that we should repent of them?

Nor is this all. It is not merely that it becomes us, once in a way, to repent. There is far more than this. The spirit of self-judgment, genuine contrition, and true humility must characterize everyone who enters at all into the profound mystery of the sufferings of Christ. Indeed it is only as we contemplate and deeply ponder those sufferings that we can form anything approaching to a just estimate of the hatefulness (vf sin, on the one hand, and the divine fullness and perfectness of remission, on the other. Such was the hatefulness of sin, that it was absolutely necessary that Christ should suffer; but—all praise to redeeming love t—such were the sufferings of Christ, that God can forgive us our sins according to the infinite value which He attaches to those sufferings. Both go together; and both, we may add, exert a formative influence, under the powerful ministry of the Holy Ghost, on the christian character, from first to last. Our sins are all forgiven; but " it behooved Christ to suffer;" and hence, while our peace flows like a river, we must never forget the soul-subduing fact that the basis of our peace was laid in the ineffable sufferings of the Son of God.

This is most needful, owing to the excessive levity of our hearts. We are ready enough to receive the truth of the remission of sins, and then go on in an easy, self-indulgent, world-loving spirit, thus proving how feebly we enter into the sufferings of our blessed Lord, or into the real nature of sin. All this is truly deplorable, and calls for the deepest exercise of soul. There is a sad lack amongst us of that real brokenness of spirit which ought to characterize those who owe their present peace and everlasting felicity and glory to the sufferings of Christ. We are light, frivolous, and self-willed. We avail ourselves of the death of Christ to save us from the consequences of our sins, but our ways do not exhibit the practical effect of that death in its application to ourselves. We do not walk as those who arc dead with Christ—who have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts—who arc delivered from this present evil world. In a word, our Christianity is sadly deficient in depth of tone; it is shallow, feeble, and stunted. We profess to know a great deal of truth; but, it is to be feared, it is only in theory. We talk about principles, which are not turned to practical account.

It may, perhaps, be asked, " What has all this to do with ' The Great Commission?" " It has to do with it, in a very intimate way. We are deeply impressed with a sense of the superficial way in which the work of evangelization is carried on at the present day. Not only are the terms of the great commission overlooked, but the basis seems to be little understood. The sufferings of Christ are not duly dwelt upon and unfolded. The atoning work of Christ is presented in its sufficiency for the sinner's need—and, no doubt, this is a signal mercy. We have to be profoundly thankful when preachers and writers hold up the precious blood of Christ as the sinner's only plea, instead of preaching up rites, ceremonies, sacraments, good works—falsely so called, creeds, churches, religious ordinances, and such like delusions.

All this is most fully admitted. But, at the same time, we must give expression to our deep and solemn conviction that much of our modern evangelical preaching is extremely shallow and bald; and the result of that preaching is seen in the light, airy, flippant style of many of our so-called converts. Some of us seem so intensely anxious to make everything so easy and simple for the sinner, that our preaching becomes extremely one-sided.

Thanks be to God, He has indeed made all easy and simple for the needy, broken-hearted, penitent sinner. He has left him nothing to do, nothing to give. It is " to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly." It is not possible for any evangelist to go too far in stating this side of the question. No one can go beyond Rom. 4:5, in setting forth salvation by free grace, through faith, without works of any sort or description.

But then, we must remember that the blessed apostle Paul—the greatest evangelist that ever lived except his divine Master—did not confine himself to this one side; and neither should we. He pressed the claims of divine holiness. He called upon sinners to judge themselves, and he called upon believers to subdue and deny themselves. He did not preach a gospel that left people at case in the world, satisfied with themselves, and occupied with earthly things, lie did not tell people that they were saved from the flames of hell and were therefore free to enjoy the follies of earth.

This was not Paul's gospel. He preached a gospel which, while it fully met the sinner's deepest need, did also most fully maintain God's glory—a gospel, which, while it came down to the very lowest point of the sinner's condition, did not leave him there. Paul's gospel not only set forth a full, clear, unqualified, unconditional, present forgiveness of sins, but also, just as fully and clearly, the condemnation of sin, and the believer's entire deliverance from this present evil world. The death of Christ, in Paul's gospel, not only assured the soul of complete deliverance from the just consequences of sins, as seen in the judgment of God in the lake of fire; but it also set forth, with magnificent fullness and clearness, the complete snapping of every link with the world, and entire deliverance from the present power and rule of sin.

Now, here is precisely where the lamentable deficiency and culpable one-sidedness of our modern preaching are so painfully manifest. The gospel which one often hears now-a-days is, if we may be allowed the use of such a term, a carnal, earthly, worldly gospel. It offers a kind of ease, but it is fleshly, worldly ease. It gives confidence; but it is rather a carnal confidence than the confidence of faith. It is not a delivering gospel. It leaves people in the world, instead of bringing them to God.

And what must be the result of all this? We can hardly bear to contemplate it. We greatly fear that, should our Lord tarry, the fruit of much of what is going on around us will be a terrible combination of the very highest profession with the very lowest practice. It cannot be otherwise. High truth taken up in a light, carnal spirit, tends to lull the conscience and quash all godly exercise of soul as to our habits and ways, in daily life. In this way, people escape from legality only to plunge into levity, and truly the last state is worse than the first.

We earnestly hope that the christian reader may not fool unduly depressed by the perusal of these lines. God knows we would not pen a line to discourage the feeblest lamb in all the precious flock of Christ. We desire to write in the divine presence. We have entreated the Lord that every line of this paper and of all our papers should come directly from Himself to the reader. Indeed it has been our one desire and prayer, ever since we undertook the service of conducting this magazine, that it might be His messenger; and that when it ceased to be this, it should cease to be altogether.

Hence, therefore, we must ask the reader—and we do so most faithfully and affectionately—to ponder what is here put before him. We cannot hide from him the fact that we are most seriously impressed with the condition of things around us. We feel that the tone and aspect of much of the so-called Christianity of this our day arc such as to awaken the gravest apprehension in the mind of every thoughtful observer. We perceive a terribly rapid development of the features of the last days, as detailed by the pen of inspiration. " This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, head, high-minded, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away." 2 Tim. 3:1-5.

What an appalling picture! How solemn to find the very same evils that characterize the heathen, as recorded in Rom. 1, reproduced in connection with the highest profession of Christianity! Should not the thought of this awaken the most serious apprehensions in the mind of every Christian? Should it not lead all who are engaged in the holy service of preaching and teaching amongst us to examine themselves closely, as to the tone and character of their ministry, and as to their own private walk and ways? It does seem to us that we want a more searching style of ministry on the part of evangelists and teachers. There is a lack of hortatory and prophetic ministry. By prophetic ministry we mean that which brings the conscience into the immediate presence of God.

In this we are lamentably deficient. There is a vast amount of objective truth in circulation amongst us—more, perhaps, than ever since the days of the apostles. Books, and periodicals by hundreds of thousands, tracts by hundreds of millions arc sent forth annually.

Do we object to this? Nay; we bless God for it. But we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that by far the largest proportion of all this vast mass of literature is addressed to the intelligence, and not enough to the heart and conscience. Now, while it is quite right to enlighten the understanding, it is quite wrong to neglect the heart and conscience. We feel it to be a most serious thing to allow the intelligence to outstrip the conscience—to have more truth in the head than in the heart—to profess principles which do not govern the practice. Nothing can be more dangerous. It tends to place us, directly, in the hands of Satan. If the conscience be not kept tender, if the heart be not governed by the fear of God, if a broken and contrite; spirit be not cultivated, there is no telling what depths we may plunge into. When the conscience is kept in a sound condition, and the heart is humble and true, then every fresh ray of light that shines in upon the understanding ministers strength to the soul and tends to elevate and sanctify our whole moral being.

This is what every earnest spirit must crave. All true-hearted Christians must long for increased personal holiness, more likeness to Christ, more genuine devotedness of heart, a deepening, strengthening, and expanding of the kingdom of God in the soul—that kingdom which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

May we all have grace to seek after these divine realities! May we diligently cultivate them in our own private life, and seek, in every possible way, to promote them in all those with whom we come in contact! Thus shall we, in some measure, stem the tide of hollow profession around us, and be a living testimony against the powerless form of godliness so sadly dominant, in this our day.

Christian reader, art thou one with us in this current of thought and feeling? If so, then let us most earnestly entreat thee to join us in earnest prayer to God, that He will graciously raise our spiritual tone by drawing us closer to Himself, and filling our hearts with love to Him and earnest desire for the promotion of His glory, the progress of His cause, and the prosperity of His people.

(To be continued, if the Lord will)

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 2

It is more than probable that some may find it difficult to reconcile the calm certainty expressed in the first verse of our chapter (2 Cor. 5) with the groan of verse 2. But the difficulty will vanish the moment we are enabled to see the true reason of the groan. " For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life."

Here we see that the very certainty of having " a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" makes us groan to possess it. The apostle did not groan in doubt or uncertainty. He did not groan under the weight of guilt or fear. Still less did he groan because he could not satisfy the desires of the flesh or of the mind, or because he could not surround himself with this world's perishable possessions. No; he longed for the heavenly building—the divine, the real, the eternal. He felt the heavy burden of the poor crumbling tabernacle; it was a grievous hindrance to him. It was the only link with the scene around, and, as such, it was a heavy clog of which he longed to be rid.

But, most clearly, he would not and could not have groaned for the heavenly house if he had a single question on Ms mind with respect to it. Men are never anxious to get rid of the body unless they are sure of possessing something better; nay, they grasp this present life with intense eagerness, and tremble at the thought of the future which is all darkness and uncertainty to them. They groan at the bare thought of quitting the body; the apostle groaned because he was in it.

This makes all the difference. Scripture never contemplates such a thing as a Christian groaning under sin, guilt, doubt, or fear; or sighing after the riches, honors, or pleasures of this vain, sin-stricken world. Alas! alas! they do thus groan through ignorance of their true position in a risen Christ, and their proper portion in the heavens. But such is not the ground or character of the groan in the scripture now before us; Paul saw, with distinctness, his house in the heavens; and, on the other hand, he felt the heavy burden of the tabernacle of clay; and he ardently longed to lay aside the latter and be clothed with the former.

Hence, then, there is the fullest harmony between " we know" and "we groan." If we did not know for a certainty that we have a building of God, we should like to hold our earthly house as long as possible. We see this constantly. Men cling to life. They leave nothing untried to keep body and soul together. They have no certainty as to heaven. They cannot say, " we know" that " we have" anything there. On the other hand, they have a terrible dread of the future, which to their vision is wrapped up in clouds and thick darkness. They have never committed themselves in calm confidence to God and His word; they have never felt the tranquillizing power of His love. They have viewed Him as an angry Judge instead of seeing Him as the sinner's friend—a just God and a Savior—the righteous Justifier. No marvel, therefore, if they shrink with terror from the thought of meeting Him.

But it is a totally different thing with a man who knows God as his Father—his Savior—his best Friend; who knows that Jesus died to save Mm from his sins, and from all the consequences thereof. Such an one can say,

" I have a home above,

From sin and sorrow free;

A mansion which eternal Love

Designed and formed for me.

The Father's gracious hand

Has built this blest abode;

From everlasting it was planned,

The dwelling place of God.

The Savior's precious blood

Has made my title sure;

He passed through death's dark raging flood,

To make my rest secure."

These are the breathings of simple faith, and they perfectly harmonize with the groans of a spirit " that looks beyond its cage and longs to flee away." The believer finds his body of sin and death a heavy burden, and longs to be free from the encumbrance, and to be clothed upon with a body suited to his new and eternal state—a new creation body—a body perfectly free from every trace of mortality. This cannot be until the morning of resurrection, that glorious moment, long looked for, when the dead in Christ shall rise and the living saints be changed, in a moment; when death shall be swallowed up in victory, and mortality shall be swallowed up of life.

It is for this we groan, not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon. The unclothed state is not the object, though we know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord; and to depart and be with Christ is far better. The Lord Jesus is waiting for that glorious consummation, and we wait in sympathy with Him. Meanwhile, " the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." Romans 8:22-25.

Thus, then, beloved reader, we have before us a very distinct answer to the question, "Why does the believer groan?" He groans, being burdened. He groans in sympathy with a groaning creation, with which he is linked by means of a body of sin and death—a body of humiliation. He sees around him, day by day, the sad fruits of sin. He cannot pass along the streets of our cities and towns without having before his eyes a thousand proofs of man's sad state. He hears on one side the wail of sorrow; on another, the cry of distress. He sees oppression, violence, corruption, strife, heartless villainy and its victims. He sees the thorn, the thistle, and the brier. He notes the various disturbing forces which are abroad in the physical, the moral, and the political world. He marks the varied forms of disease and misery around him. The cry of the poor and the needy, the widow and the orphan, falls sadly upon his ear and upon his heart; and what can he do but send up from the deepest depths of his spiritual nature a sympathetic groan, and long for the blissful moment when " The creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God?" It is impossible for a true Christian to pass through a world like this without groaning. Look at the blessed Master Himself; did not He groan? Yes, verily. Mark Him as He approached the grave of Lazarus, in company with the two weeping sisters. "When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept." John 11:33-35.

Whence came those tears and groans? Was He not approaching the grave of His friend as the Prince of Life—the Quickener of the dead—the Conqueror of death—the Spoiler of the grave? Why, then, did He groan? He groaned in sympathy with the objects of His love, and with the whole scene around Him. His tears and groans emanated from the profound depths of a perfect human heart, which felt, according to God, the true condition of the human family, and of Israel in particular. He beheld around Him the varied fruits of sin. He felt for man, He felt for Israel. "In all their afflictions He was afflicted.' He was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He never even cured a person without bearing upon His spirit the reality of that with which He was dealing. He did not, He would not, lightly bid away death, disease, and sorrow. No; He entered into it all, as man; and that, too, according to the infinite perfections of His divine nature. He bore it all upon His spirit, in the reality of it, before God. Though perfectly free from it all, and above it all, yet did He in grace voluntarily enter into it most thoroughly, so as to taste, and prove, and know it all, as none else could know it.

All tins is fully expressed in the eighth chapter of Matthew, where we read the following words, " When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took oar infirmities, and hare our sicknesses." Ver. 16, 17.

We have very little idea of what the heart of Jesus felt as He passed through this sorrowful, because sinful, world; and we are far too apt to miss the reality of His sufferings by confining them merely to what He endured on the cross; and also by supposing that because He was God over all blessed forever, He did not feel all that a human heart is capable of feeling. This is a sad loss. Indeed we may say it is an incalculable loss. The Lord Jesus, as the Captain of our salvation, was made perfect through sufferings. See Heb. 2 where the inspired writer distinguishes carefully between " the suffering of death," and the " sufferings" of the Captain of our salvation. In order to save sinners from wrath, " He tasted death for every man," and having done so, we see Him " crowned with glory and honor." But in order to "bring many sons to glory," He had to be "perfected through sufferings." And now all true believers have the unspeakable privilege of knowing that there is one at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens who, when in this world of sin and woe, tasted every form of suffering and every cup of sorrow which it was possible for any human heart to know. He could say, "Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none." Psalm 69:20.

How deeply affecting is all this! But we cannot pursue this subject here. We have merely touched upon it in connection with the question, " Why does the believer groan?" We trust that the reader will see clearly the true answer to tins inquiry; and that it will be most evident to Ids mind that the groans of a Christian proceed from the divine nature which he actually possesses, and cannot therefore, by any possibility, be occasioned by doubts or fears, on the one hand, nor yet by selfish desires or the insatiable cravings of nature, on the other. But that, on the contrary, the very fact of Ins possessing everlasting life, through faith in Christ, and the blessed assurance of having a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, causes him to long for that blessed, indestructible building, and to groan because of Ins connection with a groaning creation, as well as in sympathy therewith.

If any further proof were needed, on this deeply interesting question, we have it in the fifth and sixth verses of our chapter (2 Cor. 5) where the apostle goes on to say, " Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident (not doubting or fearing), knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, not by sight) we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Ver. 5-8.

Here we have two grand cardinal truths laid down, namely, first, The believer is God's workmanship; and secondly, God has given him the earnest of the Spirit. Most marvelous—most glorious facts!—facts which demand the special attention of the reader. Every one who simply and heartily believes on the Lord Jesus Christ is God's workmanship. God has created him anew in Christ Jesus. Clearly, therefore, there can be no possible ground for questioning his acceptance with God, inasmuch as God can never call in question His own work. He will, assuredly, no more do this in His new creation, than He did in the old. When God looked upon His work, in the opening of the book of Genesis, it was not to judge it or call it in question, but to pronounce it very good, and express His complacency in it. So, now, when God looks upon the very feeblest believer, He sees in him His own workmanship, and, most assuredly, He is not going, either here or hereafter, to call in question His own work. God is a Rock, His work is perfect, and the believer is God's work; and, because he is His work He has sealed him with the Holy Ghost.

(To be continued, if the lord will.)

" Sun of my soul! thou Savior dear,

It is not night if thou be near:

Oh! may no earth-born cloud arise

To hide thee from thy servant's eyes.

When the soft dews of kindly sleep

My wearied eyelids gently steep,

Be my last thought, how sweet to rest

Forever on my Savior's breast."

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 5

Very many minds are perplexed by the statement contained in 2 Cor. 5:10, which we shall here quote at length, in order that the reader may have the subject fully before him in the veritable language of inspiration. " For we must all appear [or rather "be manifested"] before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad."

Now, there is, in reality, no difficulty or ground of perplexity here. All we need is to look at the matter from a divine stand-point, and with a simple mind, in order to see it clearly. This is true in reference to every subject treated of in the word of God, and specially so as to the point now before us. We have no doubt whatever that the real secret of the difficulty felt by so many in respect to the question of the judgment-seat of Christ is self-occupation. Hence it is we so often hear such questions as the following, " Can it be possible that all our sins, all our failures, all our infirmities, all our naughty and foolish ways, shall be published, in the presence of assembled myriads, before the judgment-seat of Christ?"

Well, then, in the first place, we have to remark that scripture says nothing of the kind. The passage before us, which contains the great, broad statement of the truth on this weighty subject, simply declares that " we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ." But how shall we be manifested? Assuredly, as we are. But how is that? As God's workmanship—as perfectly righteous, and perfectly holy, and perfectly accepted in the Person of that very One who shall sit on the judgment-seat, and who Himself bore in His own body on the tree all the judgment due to us, and made a full end of the entire system in which we stood. All that which, as sinners, we had to meet, Christ met in our stead. Our sins He bore; our sin He condemned. He stood in our stead and answered all responsibilities which rested upon us as men have in the flesh, as members of the first man, as standing on the old creation ground. The Judge Himself is our righteousness. We are in Him. All that we are and all that we have, we owe it to Him and to His perfect work. If we, as sinners, had to meet Christ as a Judge, escape were utterly impossible; but, inasmuch as He is our righteousness, condemnation is utterly impossible. In short, the matter is reversed. The atoning death and triumphant resurrection of our Divine Substitute have completely changed everything, so that the effect of the judgment-seat of Christ will be to make manifest that there is not, and cannot be, a single stain or spot on that workmanship of God which the saint is declared to be.

But, then, let us ask, Whence this dread of having all our naughtiness exposed at the judgment-seat of Christ? Does not He know all about us? Are we more afraid of being manifested to the gaze of men and angels than to the gaze of our blessed and adorable Lord? If we are manifested to Him, what matters it to whom beside we are known? How far are Peter and David and many others affected by the fact that untold millions have read the record of their sins, and that the record thereof has been stereotyped on the page of inspiration? Will it prevent their sweeping the strings of the golden harp, or casting their crowns before the feet of Him whose precious blood has obliterated forever all their sins, and brought them, without spot, into the full blaze of the throne of God? Assuredly not. Why then need any be troubled by the thought of their being thoroughly manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ? Will not the Judge of all the earth do right? May we not safely leave all in the hands of Him who has loved us and washed us in His own blood? Cannot we trust ourselves implicitly to the One who loved us with such a love? Will He expose us? Will He—can He, do aught inconsistent with the love that led Him to give His precious life for us? Will the Head expose the body, or any member thereof? Will the Bridegroom expose the bride? Yes, He will, in one sense. But how? He will publicly set forth, in view of all created intelligences, that there is not a speck or a flaw, a spot or a wrinkle, or any such thing, to be seen upon that Church which He loved with a love that many waters could not quench.

Ah! christian reader, dost thou not see how that nearness to the heart of Christ, as well as the knowledge of His perfect work, would completely roll away the mists which enwrap the subject of the judgment-seat? If thou art washed from thy sins in the blood of Jesus, and loved by God as Jesus is loved, what reason hast thou to fear that judgment-seat or to shrink from the thought of being manifested before it? None whatever. Nothing can possibly come up there to alter thy standing, to touch thy relationship, to blot thy title, or cloud thy prospect. Indeed we are fully persuaded that the light of the judgment-seat will chase away many of the clouds that have obscured the mercy-seat. Many when they come to stand before that judgment-seat will wonder why they ever feared it for themselves. They will see their mistake and adore the grace that has been so much better than all their legal fears. Many who have hardly ever been able to read their title here, will read it there, and rejoice and wonder, they will love and worship. They will then see, in broad daylight, what poor, feeble, shallow, unworthy thoughts they had once entertained of the love of Christ, and of the true character of His work. They will perceive how sadly prone they ever were to measure Him by themselves, and to think and feel as if His thoughts and ways were like their own. All this will be seen in the light of that day, and then the burst of praise—the rapturous hallelujah will come forth from many a heart that, when down here, had been robbed of its peace and joy by legal and unworthy thoughts of God and His Christ.

But, while it is divinely true that nothing can come out before the judgment-seat of Christ to disturb, in any way, the standing or relationship of the very feeblest member of the body of Christ, or of any member of the family of God; yet is the thought of that judgment most solemn and weighty. Yes, truly, and none will more feel its weight and solemnity than those who can look forward to it with perfect calmness. And be it well remembered, that there are two things indispensably needful in order to enjoy this calmness of spirit. First, we must have a title without a blot, and, secondly, our moral and practical state must be sound. No amount of mere evangelical clearness as to our title will avail unless we are walking in moral integrity before God. It will not do for a man to say that he is not afraid of the judgment-seat of Christ because Christ died for him, while, at the same time, he is walking in a loose, careless, self-indulgent way. This is a most dreadful delusion. It is alarming in the extreme to find persons drawing a plea from evangelic clearness to shirk the holy responsibility resting upon them as the servants of Christ. Are we to speak idle words because we know we shall never come into judgment? The bare thought is horrible; and yet we may shrink from such a thing when clothed in plain language before us, while, at the same time, we allow ourselves to be drawn, through a false application of the doctrines of grace, into most culpable laxity and carelessness as to the claims of holiness.

All this must be sedulously avoided. The grace that has delivered us from judgment should exert a more powerful influence upon our ways than the fear of that judgment. And not only so, but we must remember that, while we, as sinners, are delivered from judgment and wrath, yet, as servants, we must give account of ourselves and our ways. It is not a question of our being exposed here or there to men, angels, or devils. No; we must give account to God." (Rom. 14:11, 12.) This is far more serious, far more weighty, far more influential, than our being exposed in the view of any creature. " Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath clone: and there is no respect of persons." (Colossians hi. 23-20.)

This is most serious and salutary. It may be asked, " When shall we have to give account to God? When shall we receive for the wrong?" We are not told, because that is not the question. The grand object of the Holy Ghost in the passages just quoted is to lead the conscience into holy exercise in the presence of God and of the Lord Christ. This is good and most needful in a day of easy profession, like the present, when there is much said about grace, free salvation, justification without works, our standing in Christ. Is it that we want to weaken the sense of these things? Far be the thought. Yea, we would, in every possible way, seek to lead souls into the divine knowledge and enjoyment of these most precious privileges. But then we must remember the adjusting power of truth. There are always two sides to a question; and we find in the pages of the New Testament, the clearest and fullest statements of grace, lying side by side with the most solemn and searching statements as to our responsibility. Do the latter obscure the former? Assuredly not. But neither should the former weaken the latter. Both should have their due place, and be allowed to exert their molding influence upon our character and ways.

Some professors seem to have a great dislike to the words, "duty" and "responsibility;" but we invariably find that those who have the deepest sense of grace, have also, and as a necessary consequence, the truest sense of duty and responsibility. We know of no exception. A heart that is duly influenced by divine grace is sure to welcome every reference to the claims of holiness. It is only empty talkers about grace and standing that raise an outcry about duty and responsibility. God deals in moral realities. He is real with us, and He wants us to be real with Him. He is real in His love, and real in His faithfulness; and He would have us real in our dealings with Him, and in our response to His holy claims. It is of little use to say, "Lord, Lord," if we live in the neglect of His commandments. It is the merest sham to say, " I go, sir," if we do not go. God looks for obedience in His children. "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."

May we bear these things in mind, and remember that all must come out before the judgment-seat of Christ. " We must all be manifested" there. This is unmingled joy to a really upright mind. If we do not unfeignedly rejoice at the thought of the judgment-seat of Christ, there must be something wrong—some screw loose. Either we are not established in grace, or we are walking in some false way. If we know that we are justified and accepted before God in Christ, and if we are walking in moral integrity, as in His presence, the thought of the judgment-seat of Christ will not disturb our hearts. The apostle could say, " We are made manifest to God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences." Was Paul afraid of the judgment-seat? Not he. But why? Because he knew that he was accepted as to his person, in a risen Christ; and, as to his ways, he " labored that whether present or absent he might be accepted of him." Thus it was with this holy man of God and devoted servant of Christ. " And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men." (Acts 24:16.) Paul knew that he was accepted in Christ, and therefore he labored to be accepted of Him.

These two things should never be separated, and they never will be in any divinely taught mind or divinely regulated conscience. They will be perfectly joined together, and, in holy harmony, exert their formative power over the soul. It should be our aim to walk, even now, in the light of the judgment-seat. This would prove a wholesome regulator in many ways. It will not, in any wise, lead to legality of spirit. Impossible. Shall we have any legality when we stand before the judgment-seat of Christ? Assuredly not. Well, then, why should the thought of that judgment-seat exert a legal influence now? In point of fact, we feel assured there is, and can be, no greater joy to an honest heart than to know that everything shall come clearly and fully out, in the perfect light of that solemn day that is approaching. We shall see all then as Christ sees it—judge of it as He judges. We shall look back from amid the blaze of divine light shining from the judgment-seat, and see our whole course in this world. We shall see what blunders we have made—how badly we did this, that, and the other work—mixed motives here—an undercurrent there—a false object in something else. All will be seen then in divine truth and light. Is it a question of our being exposed to the whole universe? By no means. Should we be concerned whether or no? Certainly not. Will it, can it, touch our acceptance? Nay, we shall shine there in all the perfectness of our risen and glorified Head. The Judge Himself is our righteousness. We stand in Him. He is our all. What can touch us? We shall appear there as the fruit of His perfect work. We shall be associated with Him in the judgment winch He executes.

Is not this enough to settle every question? No doubt. But still we have to think of our individual walk and service. We have to look to it that we bring no wood, hay, and stubble into the light of the coming day, for as surely as we do, we shall suffer loss, though we ourselves shall be saved through the fire. We should seek to carry ourselves now, as those who are already in the light, and whose one desire is to do what is well pleasing to our adorable Lord, not because of the fear of judgment, but under "the vast constraining influence" of His love. " The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again." This is the true motive spring in all christian service. It is not the fear of judgment impelling, but the love of Christ constraining us; and we may say, with fullest assurance, that never shall we have so deep a sense of that love as when we stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.

" When this passing world is done,

When has sunk, you radiant sun,

When I stand with Christ on high,

Looking o'er life's history,

Then, Lord, shall I fully know,

Not till then, how much I owe."

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 6

There are many other points of interest and value in this marvelous chapter (2 Cor. 5) on which we should greatly like to dwell; hut, as we are drawing near the close of our volume for this year, we must bring this series of articles to a conclusion; and, most assuredly, we could not do this more suitably than by unfolding, as God's Spirit may enable us, that theme winch has been before us, all along, but from which we have been detained by the weighty subjects which have been occupying us for some months past. No doubt, each one of those subjects might have been handled separately, and thus each paper in the series have been given as an independent article: but this we conceive to be a matter of comparative indifference. If the articles possess any value, when viewed separately, we trust they will lose none of that value when taken together. And, further, we think it will be found on calm reflection, that each one of the subjects handled in the foregoing series is intimately connected with " The Ministry of Reconciliation" to which we shall now direct the reader's attention as briefly as we can.

In handling this great subject, it may be well to view it under three distinct heads, namely, first, the foundation on which this ministry rests; secondly, the objects toward whom it is exercised; thirdly, the features by which it is characterized. May God the Holy Ghost control our thoughts!

I. And, first, then, as to the foundation on which the ministry of reconciliation rests. This is set before us in the closing verse of our chapter—a passage of surpassing weight, fullness and power. "For he [God] hath made him [Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

We have here three parties, namely, God; Christ; sin. This latter is simply the expression of what we are by nature. There is in "us" naught but "sin," from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot—from the center of our hearts to the circumference thereof—the whole man is sin. The principle of sin pervades the entire system of fallen humanity. The root, trunk, branches, leaves, blossom, fruit—all is sin. It is not only that we have committed sins; we are actually nothing but sin. True, we have, all of us, our characteristic sins. We have not only, all of us, " gone astray," but " we have turned every one to his own way." Each has pursued his own specific path of evil and folly; and all this is the fruit of that thing called " sin." The outward life of each is but a stream from the fountain—a branch from the stem. That stem—that fountain, is sin.

And what, let us ask, is sin? It is the acting of the will in opposition to God. It is doing our own pleasure—doing what we like ourselves. This is the root—this the source of sin. Let it take what shape, or clothe itself in what forms it may; be it gross or be it most refined in its actings, the great root-principle, the parent stem, is self-will, and this is sin. There is no necessity for entering into any detail; all we desire is that the reader should have a clear and thorough sense of what sin is, and, not only so, but that he, by nature, is sinful. Where this great and solemn fact takes full possession of the soul, by the power of the Holy Ghost, there can be no settled rest until the soul is brought to lay hold on the truth set forth in 2 Cor. 5:21. The question of sin had to be disposed of ere there could be so much as a single thought of reconciliation. God could never be reconciled to sin. But fallen man was a sinner by practice and sinful in nature. The very sources of his being were corrupt and defiled, and God was holy, just, and true. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon iniquity. Hence, then, between God and sinful humanity there could be no such thing as reconciliation. True it is—most blessedly true, that God is good, and merciful, and gracious. But He is also holy; and holiness and sin could never coalesce.

What was to be done? Hear the answer: " God hath made Christ to be sin." But where? Reader, look well to this. Where was Christ made sin? Was it in the virgin's womb? Nay. Was it in the manger of Bethlehem? Nay. Was it in Jordan's flood? Nay. Was it in the garden of Gethsemane? Nay; though most assuredly, in that garden the shadows were lengthening, the darkness was thickening, the gloom was deepening. But where and when was the holy, spotless, precious Lamb of God made sin? On the cross, and only there! This is a grand cardinal truth—a truth of vital importance—a truth which the enemy of God and His word is seeking to darken and set aside in every possible way. The devil is seeking, in the most specious manner, to displace the cross. He cares not how he compasses this end. He will make use of anything and everything in order to detract from the glory of the cross, that great central truth of Christianity round which every other truth circulates, and on which the whole fabric of divine revelation rests as upon an eternal foundation.

" He hath made him to be sin." Here lies the root of the whole matter. Christ, on the cross, was made sin for us. He died and was buried. Sin was condemned. It met the just judgment of a holy God who could not pass over a single jot or tittle of sin; nay, He poured out His unmingled wrath upon it in the Person of His Son, when that Son was " made sin." It is a serious error to believe that Christ was bearing the judgment of God during His lifetime, or that aught save the death of Christ could meet the question of sin. He might have become incarnate—He might have lived and labored on this earth—He might have wrought His countless miracles—He might have healed, and cleansed, and quickened—He might have prayed and wept and groaned; but not any of these things, nor yet all of them put together, could blot out a single stain of that dreadful thing " sin." God the Holy Ghost declares that, " without shedding of blood, there is no remission." Heb. 9:22.

Now, then, reader, if the holy life and labors of the Son of God—if His prayers, tears, and groans, could not put away sin, how do you think that your life and labors, your prayers, tears, and groans, your good works, your rites, ordinances, and ceremonies could ever put away sin? The fact is that the life of our blessed Lord only proved man more and more guilty. It laid the topstone upon the superstructure of his guilt, and therefore left the question of sin wholly unsettled.

Nor was this all. Our blessed Lord Himself declares, over and over again, the absolute and indispensable necessity of His death. " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." (John 12) " Thus it is written, and thus it behooved [or was necessary for] Christ to suffer." (Luke 24:46.) " How then shall the scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be." (Matt, xxvi.) In a word, death was the only pathway of life, the only basis of union, the only ground of reconciliation. We cannot be too distinct and firm as to this—distinct in apprehending it—firm in maintaining and confessing it. Satan has reared up a vast edifice of error on the opposite of all this. He has led millions of professing Christians to believe that incarnation and not death is the ground of the ministry of reconciliation—to believe that, in incarnation, Christ took fallen, sinful, corrupt humanity into union with Himself—that He was not that pure and precious " corn of wheat" standing alone—abiding in absolute and necessary solitude, inasmuch as it was utterly impossible that that which was essentially pure, holy, and spotless could link itself with that which is essentially impure, unholy, and defiled—to believe that we get eternal life from an incarnate, not a dead and risen Christ, and that this life is fed, nourished, and maintained by the offices and ordinances of religion, and by the sacraments of the Church. In this way is he actually, at this moment, sapping the very foundations of Christianity, blinding the minds of professing Christians, and leading them, thus blindfold, down to the pit of hell.

We speak plainly. We must do so if we are to speak at all. We are not controversialists, but we must maintain and set forth the truth of a dead and risen Christ. It maybe asked, "Who denies it?" All those who speak of incarnation as being the basis of our union with Christ, deny, in the plainest way, the whole range of truth connected with a dead and risen Christ. Many may not see this; but Satan sees it, and lie sees too how it will work. He knows what he is about, and surely the servants of Christ ought to know what is involved in the error against which we are warning our readers.

The fact is, the enemy does not want souls to see that, in the death of Christ, sentence was passed on fallen human nature and upon the whole world. This was not the case in incarnation at all. An incarnate Christ put man to the test—a dead Christ put man to death—a risen Christ takes the believer into union with Himself. When Christ came in the flesh, fallen man was still under probation. When Christ died on the cross, fallen man was wholly condemned When Christ rose from the dead, He became the Head of a new race, each member of which, being quickened by the Holy Ghost, is viewed by God as united to Christ, in life, righteousness, and favor—he is viewed as having been dead, as having passed through judgment, and as being now as free from all condemnation as Christ Himself. " He hath made him to be sin for us [he] who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Now, it must be plain to the reader who bows to scripture, that incarnation did not, and could not, accomplish all this. Incarnation did not put away sin. Need we stop here to dwell upon the glories of the mystery of incarnation? Will any one imagine that we take away from the value, or mar the integrity of that priceless fundamental truth, because we deny that it puts away sin, or forms the basis of our union with Christ? We trust not. That incarnation was essentially necessary for the accomplishment of redemption is plain to all. Christ had to become a man in order to die. " Without shedding of blood is no remission." He had to give His flesh for the life of the world. But this only goes to prove the absolute necessity of death. It was the (jiving of His flesh, not the taking of it, that laid the foundation of the whole fabric—life, pardon, peace, righteousness, union, glory, all. Apart from death, there is, and could be, absolutely nothing. Through death, we have all. It is not an incarnate Christ giving life and that life conveyed through the sacraments of the Church; but it is a crucified and risen Christ, the source and foundation of everything. The former is, in plain language, Satan's specious lie; the latter is God's most precious truth. That lies at the bottom of the whole system of false Christianity now prevailing around us, under various names; this is the foundation of true Christianity, and of all the counsels and purposes of the eternal Trinity.

But we cannot pursue this profound subject any further now. Enough has been said to set forth its connection with our special thesis, the ministry of reconciliation. When we read that " God hath made Christ to be sin for us," we must see that this involved nothing less than the death of the cross. " Thou," says that blessed One, " hast brought me into the dust of death." (Psalm 22) What an utterance! Who can fathom the mighty depths of those words, " Thou"—" Me"—and " Death?" Who can enter into the question, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Why did a holy, righteous God forsake His only-begotten, well-beloved, eternal Son? The answer contains the solid basis of that marvelous ministry whereof we speak. Christ was made sin. He not only bore our sins in His own body on the tree; but He was made sin. He stood charged with the entire question of sin. He was " the Lamb of God bearing away the sin of the world." As such He gloriously vindicated God, in the very scene where He had been dishonored. He glorified Him in respect to that very thing by which His majesty had been insulted. He took upon Himself the whole matter—placed Himself beneath the weight of the whole burden, and completely cleared the ground on which God could lay the foundations of the new creation. He opened those eternal floodgates which sin had closed, so that the full tide of divine love might roll down along that channel which His atoning death alone could furnish; so long as sin was in question, reconciliation must have been out of the question. But Christ, being made sin, died and put it away forever, and thus changed entirely the ground and character of God's dealing with man and with the world.

(To be concluded in our next, if the Lord will)

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 3

We deem it needful to call the reader's attention to the truth set forth in the fifth verse of our chapter (2 Cor. 5) winch was only hastily glanced at in the closing lines of our paper for July. "Now he that wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit."

The believer then, whoever he be, is God's workmanship. What he is, he is through God's own work. The same truth is stated in the second chapter of Ephesians, where we read, "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." This, we may truly say, is a point of the weightiest moment. It claims the grave attention of the reader who desires to be thoroughly established in the truth of God as to what a Christian—what Christianity really is. It is not a mined lost, guilty sinner seeking to work himself up into something or other fit for God. It is the very reverse. It is God, in the riches of His grace, on the ground of the atoning death of Christ, taking up a poor, dead, worthless, condemned thing—a guilty, hell-deserving sinner, and creating him anew in Christ Jesus. It is, as it were, God beginning de novo—on the new, as we may say—to form man in Christ, to place him on a new footing altogether, not now as an innocent being on a creation basis, but as a justified one, in a risen Christ. It is not man's old condition improved by human effort of any sort or description; but it is God's new workmanship in a risen, ascended, and glorified Christ. It is not man's old garment pieced or patched by human device in any shape or form whatever; but it is God's new garment introduced in the Person of Christ, who having, in infinite grace, gone down into the dust of death, and endured, on man's behalf, the judgment due to sin, the righteous wrath of a sin-hating God, was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, and is become the Head of the new creation—" The beginning of the creation of God." Revelation in. 14.

Now, it must be perfectly clear to the reader, that if our Lord Jesus Christ be, in very deed, "the beginning" of God's creation, then we must begin at the beginning, else we have done absolutely nothing at all. We may labor and toil—we may do our very utmost, and be perfectly sincere in our doing—we may vow and resolve—we may seek to improve our state, to alter our course, to mend our ways, to have in a different way—but all the while, we are in the old creation, which has been completely set aside, and is under the judgment of God; we have not begun at " the beginning" of God's new creation, and, as a necessary consequence, we have gained nothing at all. We have been spending our strength for naught and in vain. We have been putting forth efforts to improve a thing which God has condemned and set aside altogether. We are, to use a very feeble figure indeed, like a man who is spending his time, his pains, and his money in painting and papering a house that has been condemned by the government surveyor, on account of the rottenness of the foundation, and which must be taken down at once.

What should we say to such a man? Should we not deem him very foolish? Doubtless. But if it be folly to paint and paper a condemned house, what shall we say to those who are seeking to improve a condemned nature—a condemned world? We must say this, at least, they are pursuing a course which must, sooner or later, end in disappointment and confusion.

Oh! that this were understood and entered into! Would to God that Christians more fully entered into it! Would to God that all christian writers, preachers, and teachers entered into it, and set it forth distinctly with pen and voice! At the least, we earnestly desire that the reader should thoroughly grasp it. We are most fully persuaded that it is pre-eminently, " Truth for the Times." It is truth to meet the need of thousands of souls—to remove their burdens, relieve their heart and conscience—solve their difficulties—chase away their clouds. There are, at this moment, throughout the length and breadth of Christendom, countless multitudes engaged in the fruitless work of painting and papering a condemned house—a house on which God has pronounced judgment, because of the hopelessly ruined condition of its foundations. They are seeking to do little jobs of repairs here and there throughout the house, forgetting, or perhaps not knowing, that the whole building is very shortly to be demolished by order of the Divine Government. Some are doing this with the utmost sincerity, amid much sore exercise of soul, and many tears because they cannot succeed in satisfying their own hearts even, much less the claims of God. For God demands a perfect thing, not a patched up ruin. There is no use in seeking to cover with paper and paint old walls tottering on a rotten foundation. God cannot be deceived by surface work, by shallow outside appearances. The foundations are bad, the whole thing must come down, and we must put our whole trust in Him who is " the beginning of the creation of God."

Reader, pause here, for a moment's calm and serious reflection. Ask yourself the question, " Am I seeking to patch up a ruin? Am I seeking to improve the old nature? Or have I really found my place in God's new creation of which a risen Christ is the Head and Beginning?" Remember, we beseech you, that you cannot possibly engage in more fruitless toil than seeking to make yourself better. Your efforts may be sincere, but they must, in the long run, prove worthless. Your paper and paint may be all good and genuine enough, but you are putting them on a condemned ruin. You cannot say of your unrenewed nature that it is " God's workmanship;" and, most assuredly, your doings, your good works, your religious exercises, your efforts to keep the ten commandments—nothing, in short, that you can do, could possibly be called " God's workmanship." It is yours and not God's. He cannot acknowledge it. He cannot seal it with His Spirit. It is all false and good for nothing. If you cannot say, " He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God," you have really nothing. You are yet in your sins. You have not begun at God's beginning. You are yet " in the flesh;" and the voice of holy scripture declares that " They that are in the flesh cannot please God." Romans 8.

This is a solemn and sweeping sentence. A man out of Christ is " in the flesh;" and such a man cannot please God. He may be most religious, most moral, most amiable, most benevolent, a loving husband, an affectionate father, a most excellent master, a generous Mend, a liberal giver, a genial companion, a patron of the poor, upright and honorable in all Ids dealings; he may be an eloquent preacher and a popular writer, and all the while not be " in Christ," but "in the flesh," and therefore he "cannot please God."

Can aught be more solemn than this? Only to think of how far a person may go in all that is deemed excellent among men, and yet not be in Christ, but in his sins—in the flesh—in the old creation—in the condemned house. And be it noted, that it is not a question of gross sins, of scandalous living in all its varied hideous shapes, of immorality, in its deeper and darker shades; no, the declaration of holy scripture is, that " They that are in the flesh cannot please God." This truly is most soul subduing, and calls for deep and solemn reflection on the part of every thoughtful and earnest soul.

But it may be that, to the reader's view, difficulties and stumbling blocks still surround this most weighty subject. He may still be utterly at a loss to know what is meant by the expression, " In the flesh." If so, it will, we fondly hope, help him, not a little, to remember that scripture speaks of two men—" the first man" and " the second man." These two men are presented as the heads of two distinct races. Adam fallen is the head of one race; Christ risen is the Head of the other race. Now, the very fact of there being " a second man" proves that the first man has been set aside; for if the first man had proved faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. This is clear and unquestionable. The first man is a total wreck—an irreparable ruin. The foundations of the old edifice have given way; and albeit, in man's view, the building seems to stand, and to be capable of being repaired, yet in God's view it is completely set aside, and a Second Man—a new edifice set up, on the solid and imperishable ground of redemption.

Hence, we read, in the third chapter of Genesis, that God " drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life." In other words, the first man was driven out, and every possible way of return was closed against him, as such. He could only get back by " a new and living way," namely, through the rent veil of the Savior's flesh. The flaming sword " turned every way," so that there was positively no way by which the first man could ever get back to Ms former state. The only hope, now, was through "the seed of the woman"—" the second man." The flaming sword declared, in symbolic yet impressive language, the truth which comes out, in the New Testament, divested of all symbol and shadow, namely, that " They that are in the flesh cannot please God"—"Ye must be born again." Every unconverted man, woman, and child, is part and parcel of the first man, fallen, ruined, set aside, and driven out. He is a member of the first Adam—the old race—a stone in the old condemned building.

Thus it stands if we are to be guided by scripture. The head and his race go together. As is the one, so is the other; what is true of the one, is true of the other. They are, in God's view, absolutely identical. Was the first Adam fallen, when he became the head of a race? Was he driven out? Was he completely set aside? Yes verily, if we are to believe scripture, then the unconverted—the unregenerated reader of these lines is fallen, driven out, and set aside. As is the head, so is the member—each member in particular—all the members together. They are inseparable, if we are to be taught by Divine Revelation.

But, further, was every possible way of return finally closed against the fallen head? Yes, scripture declares that the flaming sword turned " every way to keep the way of the tree of life." Then is it utterly impossible that the unconverted—unregenerate reader can improve himself or make himself fit for God. If the fallen head could not get back to the tree of life, neither can the fallen member. " They that are in the flesh cannot please God." That is, they that are on the old footing, in the old creation, members of the first Adam, part and parcel of the old edifice, cannot please God. "Ye must be born again." Man must be renewed in the very deepest springs and sources of his being. He must be God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before prepared that we should walk in them." He must be able to say, in the language of our text, "He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God."

But this leads us to another point. How is any one to get into this marvelous position? How can any soul take up such language? How can any one whose eyes have been opened to see his utter and hopeless ruin, as connected with the first man, as standing in the old creation, as a stone in the old edifice—how can such an one ever reach a position in which he can please God? The Lord be praised, scripture gives an answer, full, clear, and distinct, to this serious question. A Second Man has appeared upon the scene—the seed of the woman, and, at the same time, God over all, blessed forever. In Him all begins afresh. He came into this world, born of a woman, made under the law, pure and spotless, free from every taint of sin, personally, apart from every claim of sin and death, standing in the midst of a ruined world, a guilty race, Himself that pure, untainted grain of wheat. We see Him lying as a helpless babe in the manger. We see Him growing up as a youth beneath the parent roof. We see him as a man working in a carpenter's shop at Nazareth. We see Him baptized in Jordan, where all the people were baptized confessing their sins—Himself sinless, but fulfilling all righteousness, and, in perfect grace, identifying Himself with the repentant portion of the nation of Israel. We see Him anointed with the Holy Ghost for the work that lay before Him. We see Him in the wilderness faint and hungry, unlike the first man who was placed in the midst of a paradise of creature delights. We see Him tempted of Satan and coming off victorious. We trace Him along the pathway of public ministry—and such a ministry! What incessant toil! What weariness and watching! What hunger and thirst! What sorrow and travail! Worse off than the fowls and the foxes, the Son of man had not where to lay His head. The contradiction of sinners by day, the mountain-top by night.

Such was the marvelous life of this blessed One. But this was not all. He died! Yes, He died under the weight of the first man's guilt. He died to take away the sin of the world, and alter completely the ground of God's relationship with the world, so that God might deal with mail and with the world on the new ground of redemption, instead of the old ground of sin. He died for the nation of Israel. He tasted death for every man. He died the just for the unjust. He suffered for sins. He died and was buried, according to the scriptures. He went through all—met all—paid all—finished all. He went down into the dust of death, and lay in the dark and silent tomb. He descended into the lower parts of the earth. He went down to the very bottom of everything. He endured the sentence passed on man. He paid the penalty, bore the judgment, drained the cup of wrath, went through every form of human suffering and trial, was tempted in ad points, sin excepted. He made an end of everything that stood in the way, and, having finished all, He gave up His spirit into the hand of His Father, and His precious body was laid in a tomb on which the smell of death had never passed.

Nor was this all. He rose! Yes, He rose triumphant over all. He rose as the Head of the new creation—" The beginning of the creation of God"—" The first begotten from among the dead"—"The first-born among many brethren." And now the Second Man is before God, crowned with glory and honor, not in an earthly paradise, but at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. This Second Man is the last Adam, because there is none to come after Him, we cannot get beyond the last. There is only one Man before God now. The first is set aside. The last is set up. And as the first was the fallen head of a fallen race, so the last is the risen Head of a saved, justified, and accepted race. The Head and His members are inseparably identified—all the members together, and each member in particular. There is no difference. " As he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4:17.) There is nothing before God but Christ. The Head and the body, the Head and each individual member are indissolubly joined together—inseparably and eternally one. God thinks of the members as He thinks of the Head—loves them as He loves Him. Those members are God's workmanship, incorporated by His Spirit into the body of Christ, and having no other existence, no other footing, no other rank, position, or station whatsoever but" in Christ." They are no longer " in the flesh, but in the Spirit." They can please God, because they possess His nature, and are sealed by His Spirit, and guided by His word. "He that hath wrought them is God," and God must ever delight in His own workmanship. He will never find fault with or condemn the work of His own hand. "God is a rock, Ms work is perfect," and hence the believer, as God's workmanship must be perfect. He is "in Christ," and that is enough—enough for God—enough for faith—enough forever.

And, now, if it be asked, "How is all this to be attained?" scripture replies, "By faith." "Verily, verily. I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Mm that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment; but is passed from death unto life." John 5:24.

(To be continued, if the Lord will.)

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 4

The reader who has traveled intelligently with us through the opening lines of 2 Cor. 5 will be in a position to understand something of the solemn and momentous subject to which we now approach, namely, the judgment-seat of Christ. If indeed it be true that the believer is God's workmanship—if he is actually a member of Christ—associated with the Second Adam—bound up in the bundle of life with the risen and glorified Lord: if all this be true—and God's word declares it is—then it must be perfectly evident that the judgment-seat of Christ cannot, by any possibility, touch the Christian's position, or prove, in any wise, unfriendly to him. No doubt, it is a most solemn and serious matter, involving the most weighty consequences to every servant of Christ, and designed to exert a most salutary influence upon the heart and conscience of every man. But it will do all this just in proportion as it is viewed from the true standpoint, and no further. It is not to be supposed that any one can reap the divinely appointed blessing from meditating on the judgment-seat, if he is looking forward to it as the place where the grand question of his eternal salvation is to be settled. And yet how many are thus regarding it! How many of God's true people there are who, from not seeing the simple truth involved in these words, " He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God," are anticipating the judgment-seat of Christ as something that may, after all, condemn them.

This is greatly to be deplored, both because it dishonors the Lord, and completely destroys the soul's peace and liberty. For how, let us ask, is it possible for any one to enjoy peace so long as there is a single question to be settled? We conceive it is wholly impossible. The peace of the true believer rests on the fact that every possible question has been divinely and eternally settled; and, as a consequence, no question can ever arise, either before the judgment-seat of Christ, or at any other time. Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith in reference to this great question: " Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation [or, judgment]; but is passed from death unto life." John 5:24.

It is important that the reader should understand that the word used by our Lord in the above passage is not "condemnation" but "judgment." He assures the believer that he shall never come into judgment; and tins, too, be it observed, in immediate connection with the statement that " The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." (Ver. 22.) And, again, " For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man." Ver. 26, 27.

Thus, then, the One to whom all judgment is committed—who alone has authority to execute judgment, by the Father's just decree—this blessed One assures us that if we hearken to His word, and believe on Him that sent Him, we shall never come into judgment at all.

This is clear and conclusive. It must tranquillize the heart completely. It must roll away every cloud and mist, and conduct the soul into a region where no question can ever arise to disturb its deep and eternal repose. If the One who has all judgment in His hand, and all authority to execute it—if He assures me that I shall never come into judgment, I am perfectly satisfied. I believe His Word, and rest in the happy assurance that whatever the judgment-seat of Christ may prove to others, it cannot prove unfriendly to me. I know that the word of the Lord endureth forever, and that word tells me I shall never come into judgment.

But it may be that the reader finds it difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile this entire exemption from judgment with the solemn fact stated by our Lord that " For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." But there is really no difficulty in the matter. If a man has to meet judgment at all, he must give account for every idle word. How awfully solemn the thought! There is no escaping it. Were it possible for a single idle word to be let pass, it would be a dishonor to the judgment-seat. It would be a sign of weakness and incompetency which is utterly impossible. It were blasphemy against the Son of God to suppose that a single stain could escape His scrutinizing gaze. If the reader comes into judgment, that judgment must be perfect, and, hence, his condemnation must be inevitable.

We would press tins serious matter upon the attention of the unconverted reader. It imperatively demands his immediate and earnest consideration. There is a day rapidly approaching when every idle word, and every foolish thought, and every sinful act, will be brought to light, and he will have to answer for it. Christ, as a Judge, has eyes like unto a flame of fire, and feet like unto fine brass—eyes to detect, and feet to crush the evil. There will be no escape. There will be no mercy then: all will be stern and unmitigated judgment. "I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and the grave gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and the grave were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." Rev. 20:11-15.

Mark here the difference between " the books" and " the book of life." The entire scene sets forth the judgment of the wicked dead—of those who have died in their sins, from first to last. " The book of life" is opened; but there is no judgment for those whose names are written therein by the hand of electing and redeeming love. " The books" are opened—those awful records written in characters deep, broad, and black—those terrible catalogs of the sins of every man, woman, and child, from the beginning to the end of time. There will be no escaping in the crowd. Each one will stand in his own most intense individuality in that appalling moment. The eye of each will be turned in upon himself, and back upon his past history. All will be seen in the light of the great white throne, from which there is no escape.

The skeptic may reason against all this. He may say, " How can these things be? How could all the dead stand before God? How could the countless millions, who have passed away since the foundation of the world, find sufficient space before the judgment-seat?" The answer is very simple to the true believer, whatever it may be to the skeptic; God who made them, will make a place for them to stand for judgment, and a place to he in everlasting torment. Tremendous thought! " God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." Acts 17:31.

And be it remembered that " every man will be judged according to his works." The solemn session of the judgment referred to in Rev. 20 will not be an indiscriminate act. Let none suppose this. There are " books" - rolls—records. "Every man" will he judged. How? " According to his works." Nothing can be more precise and specific. Each one has committed his own sins, and for them he will be judged and punished everlastingly. We are aware that many cherish the notion that people will only be judged for rejecting the gospel. It is a fatal mistake. Scripture teaches the direct contrary. It declares that people will be judged according to their works. What are we to learn from the "many stripes" and the " few stripes" of Luke 12? What is the force of the words " more tolerable" in Matt. 11? Are we not plainly taught by these words that there will be a difference in the degrees of judgment and punishment? And does not the apostle most distinctly teach us in Eph. 4 and Col. 3 that the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience (or, unbelief) "because of" certain sins against which he solemnly warns the saints.

No doubt, the rejection of the gospel leaves people on the ground of judgment, just as the true belief of the gospel takes people off that ground. But the judgment will be, in every case, according to a man's works. Are we to suppose that the poor ignorant savage, who has lived and died amid the gloomy shades of heathen darkness, will be found in the same "book," or punished with the same severity as a man who has lived and died in the total rejection of the full blaze of gospel light and privilege? Not for a moment, so long as the words " more tolerable" stand on the page of inspiration. The savage will be judged according to his works, and the baptized sinner will be judged according to his works; but, assuredly, it will be more tolerable for the former than the latter. God knows how to deal with people. He can discriminate, and He declares that He will give to each according to Ms works.

Reader, think of this, we beseech you. Think deeply, think seriously. If thou art unconverted, think of it for thyself, for, assuredly, it concerns thee. And if thou art converted, think of it for others, as the apostle says, " Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." It is impossible for any one to reflect upon the great and awful fact of judgment to come, and not be stirred up to warn his fellows. We believe it is of the very last possible importance that the conscience of men should he acted upon by the solemn truth of the judgment-seat of Christ—that they should be made to feel the seriousness of having to do with God as a Judge.

Should the reader, whoever he be, have been led to feel this—if he has been roused by this weighty matter—if he is, even now, asking the question, "What must I do?" the answer is blessedly simple. The gospel declares that the One who will, ere long, act as a judge, is now revealed as a Justifier—even a Justifier of the ungodly sinner that believeth in Jesus. This changes the aspect of things entirely. It is not that the thought of the judgment-seat loses a single jot or tittle of its gravity and solemnity. Quite the contrary. It stands in all its weight and magnitude. But the believer looks at it from a totally different point of view. In place of looking at the judgment-seat of Christ as a guilty member of the first Adam, he looks at it as a justified and accepted member of the Second. In place of looking forward to it as the place where the question of his eternal salvation or perdition is to be decided, he looks to it as one who knows that he is God's workmanship, and that he can never come into judgment, inasmuch as he has been taken clean off the ground of guilt, death, and judgment, and placed, through the death and resurrection of Christ, on a new ground altogether, even the ground of life, righteousness, and cloudless favor.

It is most needful to be clear as to this grand fundamental truth. Very many even of the people of God are clouded in reference to it, and hence it is that they are afraid when they think of the judgment-seat. They do not know God as a Justifier. Their faith has not grasped Him as the One who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. They are looking to Christ to keep God out as a Judge, very much in the same way as the Israelites looked to the blood to keep out the destroyer. (See Exod. 14) It is true and real enough, so far as it goes; but it falls very far short of the truth revealed in the New Testament. There is a vast difference between keeping God out as a destroyer and a Judge, and bringing Him in as a Savior and a Justifier. An Israelite would have dreaded, above all things, God's coming in to him. Why? Because God was passing through the land as a destroyer. The Christian, on the contrary, delights to be in the presence of God. Why? Because He has revealed Himself as a Justifier. How? By raising up Jesus our Lord from the dead.

There are three forms of expression used by the inspired apostle in Rom. 3 and iv. winch should be carefully pondered. In chapter iii. 26 he speaks of " Believing in Jesus." In chapter iv. 5, he speaks of " Believing in him that justifieth the ungodly." And, verse 24, he speaks of " Believing in him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead."

Now, there is no distinction in scripture without a difference; and, when we see a distinction, it is our business to inquire as to the difference. What, then, is the difference between believing in Jesus, and believing in Him that raised up Jesus? We believe it to be tins. We may often find souls who are really looking to Jesus and believing in Him, and yet they have, deep down in their hearts, a sort of dread of meeting God. It is not that they doubt their salvation, or that they are not really saved. By no means. They are saved, inasmuch as they are looking to Christ, by faith, and all who so look are saved in Him with an everlasting salvation. All this is most blessedly true; but still there is tins latent fear or dread of God, and a shrinking from death. They know that Jesus is friendly to them, inasmuch as He died for them; but they do not see clearly the friendship of God as expressed in the act of His raising up Jesus our Lord from the dead.

Hence it is that we find so many of God's people in uncertainty and spiritual distress. Their faith has not yet laid hold of God as the One who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. They are not quite sure of how it may go with them. At times they are happy, because the new nature, of which they are assuredly the partakers, gets occupied with Christ; but at times they are miserable, because they begin to look at themselves, and they do not see God as their Justifier, and as the One who has condemned sin in the flesh. They are thinking of God as a Judge with whom some question still remains to be settled. They feel as if God's eye were resting on their indwelling sin, and as if they had, in some way or another, to dispose of that question with God.

Thus it is, we feel persuaded, with hundreds of the true saints of God. They do not see God as the Condemner of sin and the Justifier of the believing sinner. They are looking to Christ on the cross, to screen them from God as a Judge, instead of looking at God as a Justifier, in raising up Christ from the dead. Jesus was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification. Our sins are forgiven; our indwelling sin, or evil nature, is condemned and set aside. It has no existence before God. It is in us, but He does not see us in it. He sees us only in a risen Christ; and we are called to reckon ourselves dead, and, by the power of God's Spirit, to mortify our members, to deny and subdue the evil nature which still dwells in us, and will dwell until we are passed out of our present condition, and find our place forever with the Lord.

This makes all so blessedly clear. We saw in our last paper, that "They that are in the flesh cannot please God;" but the believer is not in the flesh, though the flesh be in him. He is in the body, and on the earth, as to the fact of his existence; but he is neither in the flesh nor of the world as to the ground or principle of his standing. " Ye," says the Holy Ghost, " are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." (Rom. 8) " They," says our blessed Lord, " are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." John 17

What a sweet relief to a heart bowed down under a sense of indwelling sin, and not knowing what to do with it! What solid peace and comfort flow into the soul when I see God condemning my sin in the cross, and justifying me in a risen Christ! Where are my sins? Blotted out. Where is my sin? Condemned and set aside. Where am I? Justified and accepted in a risen Christ. I am brought to God without a single cloud or misgiving. I am not afraid of my Justifier. I confide in Him, love Him, and adore Him. I joy in God and rejoice in hope of His glory.

Thus, then, we have, in some measure, cleared the way for the believer to approach the subject of the Judgment-seat of Christ; but we shall not enter upon it now. The Lord may permit us to go into it in our next. We shall close this paper with those memorable words of our chapter, " Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (for we walk by faith not by sight:) we are confident, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him."

" The Lord of Life in death hath lain,

To clear me from all charge of sin;

And, Lord, from guilt of crimson stain

Thy precious blood hath made me clean.

And, now a righteousness divine

Is all my glory, all my trust;

Nor will I fear, since that is mine,

While thou dost five, and God is just."

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 7

The death of Christ, then, as we have seen, is the alone basis of reconciliation. That divine work has opened the way for placing men and things in their right relationship to God, and on their proper footing before Him. And this, be it remembered, is the true sense and meaning of reconciliation. Sin had alienated "men" from God, and set " things" entirely astray; and hence both men and things needed to be reconciled, or set straight; and the death of Christ has cleared the way for this.

It is well that the reader should see clearly the true distinction between " atonement" and " reconciliation." They are often confounded, through inattention to the language of holy scripture; and even the pious and honored translators of our most excellent Authorized Version have not, with sufficient accuracy, marked this distinction. For example, in Rom. 5; 11, they have given us the word " atonement," where it ought to be rendered " reconciliation." And, on the other hand, in Heb. 2:17 we have the word " reconciliation" where it ought to be " atonement."

Nor is the distinction by any means unimportant. The word " atonement" or " propitiation" occurs, in some one or other of its forms, six times in the Greek New Testament. (See carefully Luke 18:13; Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17; 9:5; 1 John 2:2; 4:10.) The word " reconciliation" occurs, in one or other of its forms, thirteen times in the New Testament. (See Rom. 5:10; 11 xi. 15; 1 Cor. 7:11; 2 Cor. 5:18, 19, 20: Eph. 2:16; Col. 1:20, 21.) If the reader will take the trouble of examining and comparing these passages, he will see that atonement and reconciliation are not the same thing, but that the former is the foundation of the latter. Sin had made man an enemy and thrown things into confusion; and in Col. 1:20, 21 we read, " And, having made peace through the blood of his cross [here is the foundation], by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled, in the body of his flesh, through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight." Here we have the death of Christ set forth as the ground of the reconciliation of both men and things.

Now this leads to another point of immense importance. We often hear it said that " the death of Christ was necessary in order to reconcile God to man." This is a pious mistake, arising from inattention to the language of the Holy Ghost, and indeed to the plain meaning of the word " reconcile." God never changed—never stepped out of His normal and true position. He abideth faithful. There was, and could be, no derangement, no confusion, no alienation, so far as He was concerned; and hence there could be no need of reconciling Him to us. In fact, it was exactly the contrary. Man had gone astray; he was the enemy, and needed to be reconciled. But this was wholly impossible if sin were not righteously disposed of; and sin could only be disposed of by death—even the death of One who, as being a man, could die, and being God, could impart all the dignity, value, and glory of His divine Person to the atoning sacrifice which He offered.

Wherefore, then, as might be expected, scripture never speaks of reconciling God to man. There is no such expression to he found within the covers of the New Testament. " God was in Christ reconciling the world [in its broad aspect- men and things] unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." And again, "All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ." In a word, it is God, in His infinite mercy and grace, through the atoning death of Christ, bringing us back to Himself, and placing us not merely in the original place, or on the original footing, or in the original relationship; but, as was due to the work of Christ, giving us back far more than we had lost, and introducing us into the marvelous relationship of sons, and setting us in His presence, in divine and eternal righteousness, and in the infinite favor and acceptableness of His own Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amazing grace! Stupendous and glorious plan! What a ministry! And yet need we wonder when we think of the death of Christ as the foundation of it all? When we remember that " Christ was made sin for us," it seems but the necessary counterpart that " we should be made the righteousness of God in him." It would have been no adequate result of such a work as Christ accomplished, to have brought men and things back to the Adamic or old creation ground. This would never have satisfied the heart of God in any way, whether as respects Christ's glory or our blessing. It would not have furnished an answer to that omnipotent appeal of John 17 " I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, Ο Father, glorify thou me, with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." (Ver. 4, 5.) Who can gauge the depth and power of those accents as they fell upon the ear of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?

But we must not enlarge, much as we should like to do so. We are compelled, through lack of space, to close these remarks rather abruptly. However, little remains to be said as to the objects of the ministry of reconciliation, inasmuch as we have, in a measure, anticipated them by speaking of " men and things," for these are, in very deed, the objects, and they are included in that comprehensive word " world." " God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." We would merely add here, that it is utterly impossible for any creature under heaven to exclude himself from the range of this most precious ministry. Before the reader can shut himself out from the application of all this grace to himself, he must prove that he does not belong to the world. Tins he cannot do, and hence he must see that God is beseeching Him to be reconciled.

But this leads us to look, for a moment, at the features which characterize this glorious ministry.

I. And, first, let us mark God's attitude. He is beseeching sinners. What a thought! It seems too much for the heart to conceive. Only think, reader, of the Most High and Mighty God, the Creator of the ends of the earth—the One who has power to destroy both soul and body in hell—think of Him as beseeching and praying you to be friends with Him! it is not a question of your praying to Him and His hearing you. No: but the very reverse—He is praying you. And for what does He ask you? Is it to do anything or to give anything? Nay; He simply asks you to be friends with Him because He has befriended you at the cost of His own Son. Think of this. He spared not His only begotten and well-beloved Son, but bruised Him in your stead. He made Him to be sin for you. He judged your sin in the Person of His Son, in the cross, in order that He might be able to reconcile you. And now He stretches forth His arms and opens His heart to you, and prays you to be reconciled—to be friends with Him. Surpassing grace! It really seems to us as though human language can only tend to weaken and impoverish this grand reality.

We would only further suggest that the force of verse 20 is greatly weakened by the word "you," which, as the reader will observe, ought not to be inserted. It makes it appear as though the apostle were beseeching the Corinthian saints to be reconciled, whereas he is only setting forth the terms and the style adopted by all " ambassadors" for Christ wherever they went through the wide world—the language in which they were to address " every creature" under heaven. It was not "Do this or that"—" Give this or that." It was not command or prohibition; but simply, " Be reconciled."

II. And, then, what encouragement to the poor trembling heart that feels the burden of sin and guilt to be assured that God will not impute, will not reckon, one of his sins! This is another precious feature of the ministry of reconciliation. "Not imputing their trespasses unto them." This must set the heart at rest. If God tells me that He will not count one of my trespasses to me, because He has already counted them to Jesus on the cross, this may well tranquillize my spirit and emancipate my heart. If I believe that God means what He says, perfect peace must be my portion. True, it is only by the Holy Ghost that I can enter into the power of this glorious truth; but what the Holy Ghost leads me to believe and rest in is that God does not and will not, blessed be His name, impute a single sin to me, because He has already imputed all to Christ.

But this leads us to the third feature of the ministry of reconciliation.

III. If God will not impute my trespasses to me, then, what will He impute? Righteousness—even the righteousness of God. We cannot attempt to unfold the nature and character of this righteousness. We may do so on another occasion if the Lord permit; but here we confine ourselves to the statement contained in the passage before us, winch declares that God hath made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us who were all sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Most glorious truth é Sin is made an end of, as regards the believer. Christ lives as our subsisting righteousness, before God, and we live in Him. There is not so much as one single entry to our debit, in the book of divine justice; but there is a risen and glorified Christ to our credit. Nor is this all. Not only are our sins gone, our guilt canceled—our old self completely ignored—not only are we made the righteousness of God in Jesus; but we are loved by God as Jesus is loved—accepted in Him—one with Him in all that He is and has, as a risen, victorious, ascended, and glorified Man at God's right hand. Higher than this, it is impossible to go.

And now we must close, and we do it reluctantly. We do it with a certain painful consciousness of the feebleness and poverty of our handling of tins lofty and comprehensive theme. But all this we must leave in the Master's hand. He knows all about the subject and the treatment thereof—all about the reader and the writer of these lines. To Him we commit all, while we make one solemn closing appeal to the unconverted, unawakened reader.

Dear friend, let us remind you that this glorious ministry will very soon close. The acceptable year, the clay of salvation, shall ere long come to an end. The ambassadors shall soon be all called home and their embassy be closed forever. The door shall soon be shut, and the clay of vengeance set in in terror and wrath upon a Christ-rejecting world. Let us entreat of you to flee from the wrath to come. Remember that the One who is now praying and beseeching you to be reconciled, has uttered the following awful words, " Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded. But ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh." (Pro. 1:24-26.) May the reader escape the unutterable horrors of the day of wrath and judgment!

Conversion: What Is It? Part 4

The last two verses of our chapter (1 Thess. 1) demand our very special attention. They furnish a remarkable statement of the real nature of conversion. They show, very distinctly, the depth, clearness, fullness, and reality of the work of God's Spirit in those Thessalonian converts. There was no mistaking it. It carried its own credentials with it. It was no uncertain work. It did not call for any careful examination ere it could be accredited. It was a manifest, unmistakable, work of God, the fruits of which were apparent to all. " They themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come." Verses 9, 10.

Here, then, we have a divine definition of conversion—brief, but comprehensive. It is a turning from, and a turning to. They turned from idols. There was a complete break with the past, a turning of the back, once and forever, on their former life and habits; a thorough surrender of all those objects that had ruled their hearts and commanded their energies. Those dear Thessalonians were led to judge, in the light of divine truth, their whole previous course, and not only to judge it, but to abandon it unreservedly. It was no half-and-half work. There was nothing vague or equivocal about it. It was a marked epoch in their history—a grand turning-point in their moral and practical career. It was not a mere change of opinion, or the reception of a new set of principles, a certain alteration in their intellectual views. It was far more than any or all of these things. It was the solemn discovery that their whole past career had been one great, dark, monstrous lie. It was the real heart conviction of this. Divine light had broken in upon their souls, and in the power of that light they judged themselves and the entire of their previous history. There was an out-and-out surrender of that world which had hitherto ruled their hearts' affections; not a shred of it was to be spared.

And what, we may ask, produced this marvelous change? Simply the word of God brought home to their souls in the mighty power of the Holy Ghost. We have referred to the inspired account of the apostle's visit to Thessalonica. We are told that "he reasoned with them out of the scriptures." He sought to bring their souls into direct contact with the living and eternal word of God. He did not bring mere human influence to bear upon them. There was no effort to act on their feelings and imagination. All this the blessed workman judged to be utterly valueless. He had no confidence whatever in it. His confidence was in the word and Spirit of God. He assures the Thessalonians of this very thing in the most touching manner, in chapter ii. of his epistle. "For this cause," he says, "thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe."

This is what we may call a vital and cardinal point. The word of God, and that alone, in the mighty hand of the Holy Ghost, produced these grand results in the case of the Thessalonians, which filled the heart of the beloved apostle with unfeigned thanksgiving to God. He rejoiced that they were not linked on to him, but 10 the living God Himself, by means of His word. This is an imperishable link. It is as enduring as the word which forms it. The word of man is as perishable as himself; but the word of the Lord endureth forever. The apostle, as a true workman, understood and felt all this, and hence his holy jealousy, in all his ministry, lest the souls to whom he preached should in any way lean upon him instead of on the One whose messenger and minister he was.

Hear what he says to the Corinthians: " And I, brethren, when I came unto you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" 1 Cor. 2:1-5.

Here we have true ministry—"the testimony of God," and " the demonstration of the Spirit"—the word and the Holy Ghost. Nothing else is of any value. All mere human influence, human power, and the results produced by human wisdom or energy, are perfectly worthless—yea, positively mischievous. The workman is puffed up by the apparent results of his work paraded and talked of, and the poor souls that are acted upon by this false influence are deceived, and led into an utterly false position and false profession. In a word, the whole thing is disastrous in the extreme.

Not so when the word of God, in its mighty moral power, and the energy of the Holy Ghost, are brought to bear on the heart and conscience. Then it is we see divine results, as in the case of the Thessalonians. Then indeed it is made apparent, beyond all question, who is the workman. It is not Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, but God Himself, whose work accredits itself, and shall stand forever; all homage to His holy name! The apostle had no need to reckon up and publish the results of his work at Thessalonica, or rather God's work by his means. It spoke for itself. It was deep, thorough, and genuine. It bore, with unmistakable distinctness, the stamp of God upon it, and this was quite enough for Paul; and it is quite enough for every true-hearted, self-emptied workman. Paul preached the word, and that word was brought home, in the quickening energy of the Holy Ghost, to the hearts of the Thessalonians. It fell into good ground, took root, and brought forth fruit in abundance.

And let us mark the fruit. " Ye turned from idols: Here we have, in one word, the whole life of every unconverted man, woman, or child on the face of the earth. It is all wrapped up and presented to our view in the one expression, " idols" It is not by any means necessary to bow down to a stock or a stone in order to be an idolater. Whatever commands the heart is an idol; the yielding of the heart to that thing is idolatry, and the one who so yields it is an idolater. Such is the plain, solemn, truth in this matter, however unpalatable it may be to the proud human heart. Take that one great, crying, universal, sin of " covetousness" What does the inspired apostle call it? He calls it " idolatry." How many hearts are commanded by money! How many worshippers bow down before the idol of gold! What is covetousness? Either a desire to get more, or the love of what we have. We have both forms in the New Testament. The Greek has a word to represent both. But whether it be the desire to grasp, or the desire to hoard, in either case it is idolatry.

And yet the two things may be very unlike in their outward development. The former, that is, the desire to get more, may often be found in connection with a readiness to spend; the latter, on the contrary, is generally linked with an intense spirit of hoarding. There, for example, is a man of great business capacity—a thorough commercial genius—in whose hand everything seems to prosper. He has a real zest for business, an unquenchable thirst for making money. His one object is to get more, to add thousand to thousand, to strengthen his commercial foundation, and enlarge his sphere. He lives, thrives, and revels in the atmosphere of commerce. He started on his career with a few pence in his pocket, and he has risen to the proud position of a merchant prince. He is not a miser. He is as ready to scatter as to obtain. He fares sumptuously, entertains with a splendid hospitality, gives munificently to manifold public objects.

He is looked up to and respected by all classes of society.

But he loves to get more. He is a covetous man—an idolater. True, he despises the poor miser who spends his nights over his money-bags, " holding strange communion with his gold;" delighting his heart and feasting his eyes with the very sight of the fascinating dust, refusing himself and his family the common necessaries of life; going about in rags and wretchedness, rather than spend a penny of the precious hoard; who loves money, not for what it can get or give, but simply for its own sake; who loves to accumulate, not that he may spend, but that he may hoard; whose one ruling desire is to die worth so much wretched dust—strange, contemptible desire!

Now these two are apparently very different, but they meet in one point; they stand on one common platform; they are both covetous, they are both idolaters.* This may sound harsh and severe, but it is the truth of God, and we must bow down before its holy authority. True it is that nothing is apparently more difficult to bring homo to the conscience than the sin of covetousness—that very sin which the Holy Ghost declares to be idolatry. Thousands might see it in the case of the poor degraded miser, who nevertheless would be shocked by its application to a merchant prince. It is one thing to see it in others, and quite another to judge it in ourselves. The fact is, that nothing but the light of the word of God shining in upon the soul, and penetrating every chamber of our moral being, can enable us to detect the hateful sin of covetousness. The pursuit of gain—the desire to have more—the spirit of commerce—the ability to make money—the "fac rem"—the desire to get on—all this is so " highly esteemed amongst men," that very few, comparatively, are prepared to see that it is positively " an abomination in the sight of God." The natural heart is formed by the thoughts of men. It loves, adores, and worships the objects that it finds in this world; and each heart has its own idol. One worships gold, another worships pleasure, another worships power. Every unconverted man is an idolater; and even converted men are not beyond the reach of idolatrous influences, as is evident from the warning note raised by the venerable apostle, " Little children, keep yourselves from idols." 1 John 5:21.

Reader, will you permit us to put a plain, pointed, question to you, ere we proceed farther? Are you converted? Do you profess to be so? Do you take the ground of being a Christian? If so, have you turned from idols? Have you really broken with the world, and with your former self? Has the living word of God entered your heart, and led you to judge the whole of your past life, whether it has been a life of gaiety and thoughtless folly, a life of busy money-making, a life of abominable vice and wickedness, or a life of mere religious routine—Christless, faithless, worthless religion?

Say, dear friend, how is it? Be thoroughly in earnest. Be assured there is an urgent demand for out-and-out earnestness in this matter. We cannot hide from you the fact that we are painfully conscious of the sad lack of thorough decision amongst us. We have not, with sufficient emphasis or distinctness, " turned from idols." Old habits are retained; former lusts and objects rule the heart. The temper, style, spirit, and deportment do not bespeak conversion. We are sadly too like our former selves—too like the openly and confessedly worldly people around us.

All this is really terrible. We fear it is a sad hindrance to the progress of the gospel and the salvation of souls. The testimony falls powerless on the ears of those to whom we speak, because we do not seem as though we ourselves really believe what we are talking about. The apostle could not say to us, as he said to his dear Thessalonian converts, "From you sounded out the word of the Lord.... so that we need not to speak anything." There is a want of depth, power, and markedness in our conversion. The change is not sufficiently apparent. Even where there is a work, there is a tameness, feebleness, and vagueness about it truly deplorable and discouraging.

But more of this in our next, if the Lord will.

Conversion: What Is It? Part 5

We are now called to consider what we may term the positive side of the great subject of conversion. We have seen that it is a turning from idols—a turning from all those objects which ruled our hearts and engaged our affections—the vanities and follies, the lusts and pleasures, which made up the whole of our existence in the days of our darkness and blindness. It is, as we read in Acts 26:18, a turning from darkness, and from the power of Satan; and, as we read in Gal. 1:4, a turning from this present evil world.

But conversion is much more than all this. It would, in one sense, be but a poor thing, if it were merely a turning " from sin, the world, and Satan.יי No doubt, it is a signal mercy to be delivered, once and forever, from all the wretchedness and moral degradation of our former life; from the terrible thralldom of the god and prince of this world; from all the hollowness and vanity of a world that lieth in the arms of the wicked one; and from the love and practice of sin—the vile affections which once held sway over us. We cannot be too thankful for all that is included in this side of the question.

But, we repeat, there is very much more than this. The heart may feel disposed to inquire, " What have we gotten in lieu of all we have given up? Is Christianity merely a system of negations? If we have broken with the world and self—if we have given up our former pleasures and amusements—if, in short, we have turned our back upon what goes to make up life in this world, what have we instead?"

1 Thess. 1:9 furnishes, in one word, the answer to all these inquiries—an answer full, clear, distinct, and comprehensive. Here it is—" Ye turned to GOD."

Precious answer! Yes, unspeakably precious to all who know aught of its meaning. What have I got instead of my former "idols"? God! Instead of this world's vain and sinful pleasures? God! Instead of its riches, honors, and distinctions? God! Oh, blessed, glorious, perfect Substitute! What had the prodigal instead of the rags of the far country? The best role in the father's house! Instead of the swine's husks? The fatted calf of the father's providing I Instead of the degrading servitude of the far country? The father's welcome, his bosom, and his table!

Reader, is not this a blessed exchange? Have we not, in the familiar, but ever charming, history of the prodigal, a most touching and impressive illustration of true conversion in both its sides? May we not well exclaim, as we gaze on the inimitable picture, " What a conversion! What a turning from and turning to!"

Who can utter it? What human tongue can adequately set forth the feelings of the returned wanderer, when pressed to the Father's bosom, and bathed in the light and love of the Father's house? The rags, the husks, the swine, the slavery, the cold selfishness, the destitution, the famine, the misery, the moral degradation—all gone, and gone forever; and, instead thereof, the ineffable delight of that bright and happy home; and, above all, the exquisite feeling that all that festive joy which surrounded him was wakened up by the very fact of his return—that it made the father glad to get him back!

But we shall perhaps be told all this is but a figure. Yes; but a figure of what? Of a precious, a divine reality; a figure of what takes place in every instance of true conversion, if only it be looked at from a heavenly standpoint. It is not a mere surrender of the world, with its thousand and one vanities and follies. It is this, no doubt; but it is very much more. It is being brought to God, brought home, brought to the Father's bosom, brought into the family; made—not in the language of a barren formulary, but in the power of the Spirit, and by the mighty action of the word—a child of God, a member of Christ, and an heir of the kingdom.

This, and nothing less, is conversion. Let the reader see that he thoroughly understands it. Let him not be satisfied with anything short of this grand reality—this turning from darkness to light, from the power of Satan, and from the worship of idols, to God. The Christian is, in one sense, as really brought to God now as if he were actually in heaven. This may seem strong, but it is blessedly true. Hear what the apostle Peter says as to this point: " Christ hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to"—What? Heaven when we die? Nay; but " to bring us to God" now. So also in Rom. 5 we read, " For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation."

This is an immense principle. It is not within the compass of human language to set forth all that is involved in being " turned," or " brought to God." Our adorable Lord Jesus Christ brings all who believe in His name into God's presence, in all His own perfect acceptability. They come in all the credit, and virtue, and value of the blood of Jesus, and in all the fragrance of His most excellent name. He brings us into the very same position with Himself. He links us with Himself, and shares with us all He has, and all He is, save His Deity, which is incommunicable. We are perfectly identified with Him. " Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me; because I live, ye shall live also." Again, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." " These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." " Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto your So also, in that marvelous prayer in John 17, we read, u I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them." "I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." " As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." " And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. Ο righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."

Now it is utterly impossible to conceive anything higher or more blessed than this. To be so thoroughly identified with the Son of God, to be so wholly one with Him as to share in the very same love wherewith He is loved by the Father, to partake of His peace, His joy, His glory—all this involves the very highest possible measure and character of blessing with which any creature could be endowed. To be saved from the everlasting horrors of the pit of hell; to be pardoned, washed, and justified: to be reinstated in all that Adam lost; to be let into heaven, on any ground, or in any character whatsoever, would be marvelous mercy, goodness, and loving-kindness; but to be brought to God in all the love and favor of His own beloved Son, to be intimately associated with Him in all His position before God—His acceptability now—His glory by-and-by—this, truly, is something which only the heart of God could think of, and only His mighty power accomplish.

Well, reader, all this is involved in the conversion whereof we speak. Such is the magnificent grace of God, such the love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, enemies in our minds by wicked works, serving divers lusts and pleasures, worshipping idols, the blind, degraded, slaves of sin and Satan, children of wrath, and going straight to hell.

And the best of it all is, that it both glorifies the name, and gratifies the heart of God, to bring us into this place of inconceivable blessedness, love, and glory. It would not satisfy the love of His heart to give us any lower place than that of His own Son. Well might the inspired apostle exclaim, in view of all this stupendous grace, " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made as accepted in the beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." Eph. 1

What depth of love, what fullness of blessing, have we here! It is the purpose of God to glorify Himself, throughout the countless ages of eternity, in His dealings with us. He will display, in view of all created intelligences, the riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us, by Christ Jesus. Our forgiveness, our justification, our perfect deliverance, our acceptance—all the blessings bestowed upon us in Christ—are for the display of the divine glory throughout the vast universe, forever. It would not meet the claims of God's glory, or answer the affections of His heart, to have us in any other position but that of His own well-beloved and only-begotten Son.

All this is marvelous. It seems too good to be true. But it is worthy of God, and it is His good pleasure so to act toward us. This is enough for us. It may be, and most assuredly is, too good for us to get, but it is not too good for God to give. He acts toward us according to the love of His heart, and on the ground of the worthiness of Christ. The prodigal might ask to be made as one of the hired servants, but this could not be. It would not be according to the Father's heart to have him in the house as a servant. It must be as a son, or not at all. If it were a question of desert, we do not deserve the place of a servant, any more than that of a son. But, blessed be God, it is not according to our deserts at all, but according to the boundless love of His heart, and to the glory of His holy name.

This, then, is conversion. Thus we are brought to God. Nothing short of this. We are not merely turned from our idols, whatever they were, but we are actually brought into the very presence of God, to find our delight in Him, to joy in Him; to walk with Him, to find all our springs in Him, to draw upon His exhaustless resources, to find in Him a perfect answer to all our necessities, so that our souls are satisfied, and that forever.

Do we want to go back to the idols? Never! Have we any hankering after our former objects? Not if our hearts are realizing our place and portion in Christ. Had the prodigal any longings after the husks and the swine, when folded in the father's bosom, clothed in the father's house, and seated at the father's table? We do not, and cannot, believe it. We cannot imagine his heaving a single sigh after the far country, when once he found himself within the hallowed circle of that bright and blissful home of love.

We speak according to the divine standard. Alas! alas! many profess to be converted, and seem to go on for a season, but ere long they begin to grow cold, and get weary and dissatisfied. The work was not real. They were not really brought to God. Idols may have been given up for a time, but God Himself was never reached. They never found in Him a satisfying portion for their hearts—never knew the real meaning of communion with Him—never tasted heart-satisfaction, heart-rest, in Christ. Hence, in process of time, the poor heart began to long once more for the world, and back they went, and plunged into its follies and vanities with greater avidity than ever.

Such cases are very sad, very disappointing. They bring great reproach on the cause of Christ, and are used as a plea for the enemy, and as a stumbling-block for anxious inquirers. But they leave the question of divine conversion just where it was. The soul that is truly converted is one who has not merely been turned from this present evil world, and all its promises and pretensions, but who has been led by the precious ministry of the Holy Ghost to find in the living God, and in His Son Jesus Christ, all he can possibly want for time and eternity. Such an one is divinely done with the world. He has broken with it forever. He has had his eyes opened to see, through and through, the whole thing. He has judged it in the light of the presence of God. He has measured it by the standard of the cross of Christ. He has weighed it in the balances of the sanctuary, and turned his back upon it forever, to find an absorbing and a commanding object in the Person of that blessed One who was nailed to the accursed tree, in order to deliver him, not only from everlasting burnings, but also from this present evil world.

(To be continued, if the Lord will.)

Conversion: What Is It? Part 8

The last words of our chapter—1 Thess. 1—now claim our attention. They furnish a very striking and forcible proof of the clearness, fullness, depth, and comprehensiveness of the apostle's testimony at Thessalonica, and also of the brightness and reality of the work in the young converts in that place. It was not merely that they turned from idols to God, to serve the living and true God. This, through grace, they did, and that, too, with uncommon power, freshness, and fervor.

But there was something more; and we may assert with all possible confidence, that there would have been a grand defect in the conversion and in the Christianity of those beloved disciples, if that had been lacking. They were converted to wait for the Son of God from the heavens.

Let the reader give to this very weighty fact his most devout and profound attention. The bright and blessed hope of the Lord's coming formed an integral part of the gospel which Paul preached, and of the Christianity of those who were converted by his ministry. That blessed servant preached a full gospel. He not only declared that the Son of God had come into the world, to accomplish the great work of redemption, and lay the everlasting foundation of the divine glory and counsels, but that He had gone back to the heavens, and taken His seat, as the victorious, exalted, and glorified Man, at the right hand of the throne of God; and that He is coming again, first, to receive His people to Himself, and conduct them into the very innermost circle of His Father's house—the place prepared for them; and then to come forth with them, to execute judgment upon His enemies—gather out of His kingdom all that offend, and all that do iniquity, and set up His glorious dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.

All this was included in the precious gospel which Paul preached, and which the Thessalonian converts received. We find an indirect, but very interesting intimation of this in a passage in Acts 17, where the inspired writer records what the infidel Jews thought and said about the apostle's preaching. " But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; whom Jason hath received; and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus."

Such were the ideas which those poor ignorant, prejudiced unbelievers gathered from the preaching of the Lord's beloved servants; and we can see in them the elements of great and solemn truths—the complete upturning of the present system of things, and the establishment of the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. "I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him." Ez. 21:27.

But not only did the Lord's corning and kingdom occupy a prominent place in the preaching of the apostle, it also shines brilliantly forth in all his teaching. Not only were the Thessalonians converted to this blessed hope; they were built up, established, and led on in it. They were taught to live in the brightness of it every hour of the day. It was not a dry, barren dogma, to be received and held as part of a powerless, worthless creed; it was a living reality, a mighty moral power in the soul—a precious, purifying, sanctifying, elevating hope, detaching the heart completely from present things, and causing it to look out, moment by moment—yes, reader, we repeat it with emphasis, moment by moment—for the return of our beloved Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who loved us, and gave Himself for us.

It is interesting to notice that, in the two epistles to the Thessalonians, there is far more allusion to the Lord's coming than in all the other epistles put together. This is all the more remarkable, inasmuch as they were the very earliest of Paul's epistles, and they were written to an assembly very young in the faith.

If the reader will just glance rapidly through these two most precious writings, he will find the hope of the Lord's return introduced in every one of the eight chapters, and in connection with all sorts of subjects. For example, in chapter 1 we have it presented as the grand object to be ever kept before the Christian's heart, let his position or his relationship be what it may—the brilliant light shining at the end of his long pilgrimage through this dark and toilsome world. " Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; and to wait for"—what? The time of their death? No such thing, no allusion to such a thing. Death, for the believer, is abolished, and is never presented as the object of his hope. For what, then, were the Thessalonian disciples taught to wait? " For God's Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead."

And then mark the beauteous addition! "Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come." This is the Person for whom we are waiting; our precious Savior; our great Deliverer; the One who undertook our desperate case, who took, on our behalf, the cup of wrath, from the hand of infinite Justice, and exhausted it, forever; who cleared the prospect of every cloud, so that we can gaze upward into heaven, and onward into eternity, and see nothing but the brightness and blessedness of His own love and glory, as our happy home throughout the everlasting ages.

Oh, beloved christian reader, how blessed to be looking out, morning, noon, eventide, and midnight, for the coming of our gracious Deliverer! What a holy reality to be ever waiting for the return of our own loving and beloved Savior and Lord! How separating and elevating, as we rise each morning to start on our daily course of duty—whatever that duty may be, whether the scrubbing of a floor, or the evangelizing of a continent—to cherish the bright and blessed hope that, ere the shades of evening gather round us, we may be summoned to ascend in the folds of the cloud of glory to meet our coming Lord!

Is this the mere dream of a wild fanatic or a visionary enthusiast? Nay, it is an imperishable truth, resting on the very same foundation that sustains the entire fabric of our most glorious Christianity. Is it true that the Son of God has trod this earth of ours in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth? Is it true that He lived and labored here amid the sins and sorrows of poor fallen humanity? Is it true that He sighed, and wept, and groaned under the sense of the wide-spread desolation which sin had wrought in this world? Is it true that He went to the cross, and there offered Himself without spot to God, in order to vindicate the Divine Majesty; to answer all the claims of the throne of God; to destroy all the works of the devil; to make a public show of all the powers of hell; to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; to bear the sins of all those who, from the beginning to the end of time, should, through grace, believe in His name? Is it true that He lay for three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, and on the first day of the week rose triumphant from the grave, as the Head of the new creation, and ascended into the heavens, after He had been seen by at least five hundred witnesses? Is it true that, fifty days after His resurrection, He sent down the Holy Ghost, in order to fill and fit His apostles to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth? Is it true that, from the day of Pentecost to this very hour, He has been acting on His people's behalf as an Advocate with the Father, a great High Priest with God; interceding for us in all our failures, sins, and shortcomings, and sympathizing with us in all our infirmities and in all our sorrows; and presenting continually our sacrifices of prayer and praise, in all the fragrance of His own glorious Person?

Are all these things true? Yes, thank God, they are all divinely true, all set forth in the pages of the New Testament, with most marvelous fullness, clearness, depth, and power; all rest on the solid foundation of holy scripture—a foundation which not all the powers of earth and hell, men and devils, can ever touch.

Well, then, the blessed hope of the Lord's coming rests on precisely the same authority. It is not more true that our Lord Jesus Christ lay as a babe in the manger of Bethlehem; that He grew up to man's estate; that He went about doing good; that He was nailed to the cross and laid in the tomb; that He is now seated on the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, than that He will come again to receive His people to Himself. He may come to-night. No one can tell when He will come, but at any moment He may come. The only thing that detains Him is His long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. For eighteen long centuries has He waited, in lingering love, mercy, and compassion; and during all that time salvation has been ready to be revealed, and God has been ready to judge; but He has waited, and He still waits, in long-suffering grace and patience.

But He will come, and we should ever live in the hope of His coming. Thus the apostle taught his beloved Thessalonians to live. Thus he lived himself. The blessed hope was intimately bound up with all the habits and feelings of his daily life. Was it a question of reaping the fruit of his labors? Hear what He says: " For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?" He would see them all then and there. No enemy will be allowed to hinder that meeting. " We would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered us." Very wonderful! Very mysterious! Yet so it was. Satan hindered an angel of God in the discharge of his business in the days of Daniel; and he hindered an apostle of Christ in the accomplishment of his loving desire to see his brethren at Thessalonica. But, thanks be to God, he will not be able to hinder the joyful meeting of Christ and His saints for which we wait. What a moment that will be! What precious reunions! What sweet recognitions! What affectionate greetings of dear old friends! But, far above all, Himself! His smile! His welcome! His soul-stirring " Well done!"

What a precious soul-sustaining hope! Need we wonder at the prominent place it occupied in the thoughts and the teachings of the blessed apostle? He recurs to it on all occasions, and in connection with every subject. Is it a question of progress in the divine life and practical godliness? Thus he puts it: " And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all, even as we do toward you; to the end he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints"

Let the reader specially mark the last clause of this touching and beautiful quotation. " With all his saints" What admirable wisdom shines here! The apostle was about to touch directly upon an error into which the Thessalonian believers had fallen, in reference to their departed friends. They feared that those who had fallen asleep would not participate in the joy of the Lord's coming. This error is completely demolished by that brief sentence, " with all his saints." Not one will be absent from that joyous meeting, that festive scene. Blessed assurance! Triumphant answer to all who would have us believe that none will share the joy of our Lord's coming save those who see this, that, and the other! "With all his saints," spite of their ignorance and their errors, their wanderings and their stumblings, their shortcomings and their failures. Our blessed Savior, the everlasting Lover of our souls, will not shut any of us out at that blissful moment.

Is all this matchless grace to make us careless? God forbid! Nay, it is the abiding sense of it which alone can keep us alive to our holy responsibility to judge everything in us and in our ways which is contrary to the mind of Christ. And not only so, but the hope of our Lord's return, if it be kept bright and fresh in the heart, must purify, sanctify, and elevate our entire character and course, as nothing else can. "Every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as he is pure." It is morally impossible for any one to live in the hope of seeing his Lord at any moment, and yet have his heart set upon worldly things, upon money-making, self-indulgence, pleasure, vanity, folly. Let us not deceive ourselves. If we are daily looking out for the Son of God from heaven, we must sit loose to the things of time and sense. We may hold the doctrine of the Lord's coming as a mere dogma in the intellect; we may have the entire range of prophetic truth mapped out before our mind's eye, without its producing the smallest effect upon the heart, the character, or the practical life. But it is another thing altogether to have the whole moral being, the entire practical career, governed by the bright and blessed hope of seeing the One who loveth us, and hath washed us from our sins in His own most precious blood.

Would there were more of this amongst us! It is to be feared that many of us have lost the freshness and power of our true and 'proper hope. The truth of the Lord's coming has become so familiar as a mere doctrine, that we can flippantly speak of it, and discuss various points in connection with it, and argue with people about it, and, all the while, our ways, our deportment, our spirit and temper give the lie to what we profess to hold.

But we shall not pursue this sad and humbling side of the subject. May the Lord look upon us, and graciously heal, restore, and lift up our souls. May He revive in the hearts of all His beloved people the proper christian hope—the hope of seeing the bright and morning star. May the utterance of the whole heart, and the utterance of the whole life, be, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"

Here we must close this paper, and with it the entire series of papers on the great subject which has, for the past few months, engaged our attention. We had hoped to run through the two epistles to the Thessalonians, in company with our readers, in order to prove and illustrate the statement, that the hope of the Lord's return was bound up in the heart of the apostle, with all the scenes, circumstances, and associations of christian life. But we must allow the reader to do this for himself. Sufficient, we trust, has been said to show that true conversion, according to apostolic teaching, cannot stop short of the blessed hope of the Lord's coming. A truly converted person is one who has turned from idols—has broken with the world—broken with his former self—turned to God, to find in Him all he can possibly want for time and eternity, to serve Him, and Him only—and, finally, " to wait for the Son of God from heaven." Such we conceive to be the true and proper answer to the question, " What is Conversion?"

Reader, art thou converted? If not, what then? If thou art, does thy life declare it?

Conversion: What Is It? Part 2

In our paper for January, we sought to set forth the absolute need, in every case, of conversion. Scripture establishes this point in such a way as to leave no possible ground of objection for any one who bows to its holy authority. " Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 18:3.

This applies, in all its moral force and deep solemnity, to every son and daughter of fallen Adam. There is not so much as a solitary exception, throughout the thousand millions that people this globe. Without conversion, there is—there can be no entrance into the kingdom of God. Every unconverted soul is outside the kingdom of God. It matters not, in the smallest degree, who I am, or what I am; if I am unconverted, I am in "the kingdom of darkness," under the power of Satan, in my sins, and on the way to hell.

I may be a person of blameless morals; of spotless reputation; a high professor of religion; a worker in the vineyard; a Sunday School teacher; an office-bearer in some branch of the professing church; an ordained minister; a deacon, elder, pastor or bishop; a most charitable individual; a munificent donor to religious and benevolent institutions; looked up to, sought after, and reverenced by all because of my personal worth and moral influence. I may be all this and more; I may be, and I may have, all that it is possible for a human being to be or to have, and yet be unconverted, and hence outside the kingdom of God, and in the kingdom of Satan, in my guilt, and on the broad road that leads straight down to the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.

Such is the plain and obvious meaning and force of our Lord's words in Matt. 18:3. There is no possibility of evading it. The words are as clear as a sunbeam. We cannot get over them. They bear down, with what we may truly call tremendous solemnity, upon every unconverted soul on the face of the earth. "Except ye be converted, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." This applies, with equal force, to the degraded drunkard that rolls along the street, worse than a beast, and to the unconverted good templar or teetotaler who prides himself on his sobriety, and is perpetually boasting of the number of days, weeks, months or years during which he has refrained from all intoxicating drink. They are both alike outside the kingdom of God; both in their sins; both on the way to eternal destruction.

True it is that the one has been converted from drunkenness to sobriety—a very great blessing indeed, in a moral and social point of view—but conversion from drunkenness to a temperance society is not conversion to God; it is not turning from darkness to light; it is not entering the kingdom of God's dear Son. There is just this difference between the two, that the teetotaler may be building upon his temperance, pluming himself upon his morality, and thus deceiving himself into the vain notion that he is all right, whereas, in reality, he is all wrong. The drunkard is palpably and unmistakably wrong. Every body knows that a drunkard is going headlong, and with awfully rapid strides, to that place where he will not find one drop of water to cool his tongue. It is clear that no drunkard can inherit the kingdom of God; and neither can an unconverted teetotaler. Both are outside. Conversion to God is absolutely indispensable for the one as well as the other; and the same may be said of all classes, all grades, all shades, all castes and conditions of men under the sun. There is no difference as to this great question. It holds good as to all alike, be their outward character or social status what it may—"Except ye be converted, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."

How important, then—yea, how momentous the question for each one, " Am I converted?" It is not possible for human language to set forth the magnitude and solemnity of this inquiry. For any one to think of going on, from day to day, and year to year, without a clear and thorough settlement of this most weighty question, can only be regarded as the most egregious folly of which a human being can be guilty. If a man were to leave his earthly affairs in an uncertain, unsettled condition, he would lay himself open to the charge of the grossest and most culpable neglect and carelessness. But what are the most urgent and weighty temporal affairs when compared with the salvation of the soul? All the concerns of time are but as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, when compared with the interests of the immortal soul—the grand realities of eternity.

Hence it is, in the very highest degree, irrational for any one to rest for a single hour without a clear and settled assurance that he is truly converted to God. A converted soul has crossed the boundary line that separates the saved from the unsaved—the children of light from the children of darkness—the church of God from this present evil world. The converted soul has death and judgment behind him, and glory before him. He is as sure of being in heaven as though he were already there; indeed he is there already in spirit. He has a title without a blot, and a prospect without a cloud. He knows Christ as his Savior and Lord; God as his Father and Friend; the Holy Ghost as his blessed Comforter, Guide and Teacher; heaven as his bright and happy home. Oh! the unspeakable blessedness of being converted. Who can utter it? "Eye hath not seen, or ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us [believers] by His Spirit; for the Spirit search-eth all things, yea the deep things of God." 1 Cor. 2:9, 10.

And now let us inquire what this conversion is, whereof we speak. Well, indeed, will it be for us to he divinely instructed as to this. An error here will; prove disastrous in proportion to the interests at stake.

Many are the mistaken notions in reference to conversion. Indeed we might conclude, from the very fact of the vast importance of the subject, that the great enemy of our souls and of the Christ of God would seek, in every possible way, to plunge us into error respecting it. If tie cannot succeed in keeping people in utter carelessness as to the subject of conversion, he will endeavor to blind their eyes as to its true nature. If, for example, a person has been roused, by some means or other, to a sense of the utter vanity and unsatisfactoriness of worldly amusements, and the urgent necessity of a change of life, the arch-deceiver will seek to persuade such an one to become religious, to busy himself with ordinances, rites and ceremonies, to give up balls and parties, theaters and concerts, drinking, gambling, hunting and horse-racing; in a word, to give up all sorts of gaiety and amusement, and engage in what is -called a religious life, to be diligent in attending the public ordinances of religion, to read the Bible, say prayers, and give alms, to contribute to the support of the great religious and benevolent institutions of the country.

Now, this is not conversion. A person may do all this, and yet be wholly unconverted. A religious devotee whose whole life is spent in vigils, fastings, prayers, self-mortifications and alms deeds, may be as thoroughly unconverted, as far from the kingdom of God as the thoughtless pleasure hunter, whose whole life is spent in the pursuit of objects, as worthless as the withered leaf or the faded flower. The two characters, no doubt, differ widely—as widely perhaps, as any two could differ. But they are both unconverted, both outside the blessed circle of God's salvation, both in their sins. True, the one is engaged in " wicked works," and the other in "dead works;" they are both out of Christ; they are unsaved; they are on the way to hopeless, endless misery. The one, just as surely as the other, if not savingly converted, will find his portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.

Again, conversion is not a turning from one religious system to another. A man may turn from Judaism, Paganism, Mahometanism, or Popery, to Protestantism, and yet be wholly unconverted. No doubt, looked at from a social, moral, or intellectual standpoint, it is much better to be a Protestant than a Mahometan; but as regards our present thesis, they are both on one common platform, both unconverted. Of one, just as truly as the other, it can be said, unless he is converted, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Conversion is not joining a religious system, be that system ever so pure, ever so sound, ever so orthodox. A man may be a member of the most respectable religious body throughout the length and breadth of Christendom, and yet be an unconverted, unsaved man, on his way to eternal perdition.

So also as to theological creeds. A man may subscribe any of the great standards of religious belief, the Thirty-nine Articles, the Westminster Confession, John Wesley's Sermons, Fox and Barclay, or any other creed, and yet be wholly unconverted, dead in trespasses and sins, on his way to that place where a single ray of hope can never break in upon the awful gloom of eternity.

Of what use, we may lawfully inquire, is a religious system or a theological creed to a man who has not a single spark of divine life? Systems and creeds cannot quicken, cannot save, cannot give eternal life. A man may work on in religious machinery like a horse in a mill, going round and round, from one year's end to another, leaving off just where he began, in a dreary monotony of dead works. What is it all worth? what does it all come to? where does it all end? Death! Yes; and what then? Ah! that is the question. Would to God the weight and seriousness of this question were more fully realized!

But further, Christianity itself, in all its full-orbed light, may be embraced as a system of religious belief. A person may be intellectually delighted—almost entranced with the glorious doctrines of grace, a full, free gospel, salvation without works, justification by faith; in short, all that goes to make up our glorious New Testament Christianity. A person may profess to believe and delight in this; he may even become a powerful writer in defense of christian doctrine, an earnest eloquent preacher of the gospel. All this may be true, and yet the man be wholly unconverted, dead in trespasses and sins, hardened, deceived and destroyed by his very familiarity with the precious truths of the gospel—truths that have never gone beyond the region of his understanding—never reached his conscience, never touched his heart, never converted his soul.

This is about the most appalling case of all. Nothing can be more awful, more terrible, than the case of a man professing to believe and delight in, yea, actually preaching the gospel of God, in all its fullness, and teaching all the grand characteristic truths of Christianity, and yet wholly unconverted, unsaved, and on his way to an eternity of ineffable misery—misery which must needs be intensified to the very highest degree, by the remembrance of the fact that he once professed to believe, and actually undertook to preach the most glorious tidings that ever fell on mortal ears.

Oh! reader, whoever thou art, do, we entreat of thee, give thy fixed attention to these things. Rest not, for one hour, until thou art assured of thy genuine unmistakable conversion to God.

(to be continued if the Lord will!)

Conversion: What Is It? Part 6

The more we dwell on 1 Thess. 1:9, the more we are struck with its marvelous depth, fullness, and power. It seems like sinking a shaft into an inexhaustible mine. We have dwelt a little on that very fruitful and suggestive clause, " Turned to God from idols." How much is wrapped up in it! Do we really understand the force and fullness of it? It is a wonderful thing for the soul to be brought to God—to know Him now as our resource in all our weakness and need—the spring of all our joys—our strength and shield—our Guide and Counselor—our all in all—to be absolutely and completely shut up to Him, wholly dependent upon Him.

Reader, do you know the deep blessedness of all this in your own soul? If you are a child of God, a truly converted soul, then it is your happy privilege to know it, and you ought not to be satisfied without it. If we are " turned to God," what is it for, but to find in Him all we can possibly want for time and eternity? Nothing can ever satisfy the human soul but God Himself. It is not within the compass of earth to meet the cravings of the heart. If we had the wealth of the universe, and all that that wealth could procure, the heart would still want more; there would still be an aching void which nothing under the sun could fill.

Look at the history of Solomon. Hear him recording his own experience. " I, the preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem; and I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven; this sore travail hath God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem; yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure; and behold this also is vanity. I said of laughter, it is mad; and of mirth, what doeth it? I sought in mine heart to give myself to wino, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom, and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. I made me great works: I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits; I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees. I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle, above all that were in Jerusalem before me. I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces; I gat mo men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my portion of all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do; and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun" Eccles. 1; 2

Such is the withering commentary upon all earth's resources, as given by the pen of one who had all that earth could give—of one who was allowed to drain to the very dregs every cup of human and earthly pleasure. And what was it all? " Vanity and vexation of spirit." "All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing." The poor human heart can never be satisfied with the resources of earth. Creature streams can never quench the thirst of the immortal soul. Material things cannot possibly make us truly happy, even if they were permanent. " All is vanity and vexation of spirit."

The truth of this must be proved by every human heart. Sooner or later all must find it out. Men may turn a deaf ear to it now; they may refuse to listen to the Spirit's warning voice; they may vainly imagine that this poor world can yield them substantial comfort and happiness; they may eagerly grasp at its riches, its honors, its distinctions, its pleasures, its material comforts; but they will find out their mistake. And, oh, how dreadful to find it out too late! How terrible to open one's eyes in hell, like the rich man in the parable! What human language can set forth the horrors of a soul shut out forever from the presence of God, and consigned to outer darkness, to the place of weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth? It is absolutely overwhelming to think of it. What will it be to realize it? What will it be to find oneself in the tormenting flames of hell, at the other side of that impassable gulf, where a single ray of hope can never break through the deep and horrible gloom of eternity?

Oh, that men would think of all this in time! that they might flee from the wrath to come, and lay hold on the blessed hope set before them in the gospel; that they might " turn to God." But alas! the god of this world blinds their minds, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them. He engrosses them with present things—business, money-making, pleasures, cares, lusts, anything and everything but the one thing, in comparison with which all earthly things are but as the small dust of the balance.

But we have digressed from our special theme, to which we must return.

We are particularly anxious to press upon the christian reader the immense importance of seeking to find all his resources in the living God. We have only, for a moment, turned aside from this point, in order to sound a warning note in the ear of any unconverted, careless one who may happen to take up this paper.

We earnestly entreat the latter to turn to God. We entreat the former to seek a deeper acquaintance with the One to whom, by grace, he has turned. We have the two things before us in penning these papers on the great subject of " conversion." We can truly say, we long to see precious souls converted to God; and we long to see converted souls happy in God.

We are increasingly convinced of the practical importance of Christians proving in their daily life that they have found thorough rest of heart in God. It has immense weight with worldly people. It is a grand point gained when we are able, through grace, to tell the world that we are independent of it; and the only way to do this is to live in the abiding sense of what we have in God. This would impart a moral elevation to our entire course and character. It would deliver us completely from that strong tendency to lean on human props, and to betake ourselves to creature streams, which we have all, more or less, to lament, and which must assuredly issue in disappointment to us, and dishonor to God.

How prone we are, on all occasions, to look to our fellow men for sympathy, succor, and counsel, instead of looking directly and exclusively to God! This is a serious mistake. It is in principle to forsake the Fountain of living waters, and hew out for ourselves broken cisterns which can hold no water. What can we expect? What must be the issue? Barrenness and desolation. Our God, in very faithfulness to us, will cause our fellow man to fail us, in order that we may learn the folly of leaning upon an arm of flesh.

Hear what the prophet says on this great practical question: " Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and not inhabited."

But mark the contrast. " Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." Jer. 17

Oh, reader, it is a grand reality to lean on the arm of the living God—to find in Him our relief and our resource, at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances. He never fails a trusting heart. He will never disappoint us. He may see fit to keep us waiting for an answer to our call, but the time we spend in waiting is well spent, and when the answer comes, our hearts are filled with praise, and we are able to say, " Oh, how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee, which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men." Psalm 31:19.

It is a great thing to be able to trust God before the sons of men, to confess His sufficiency for our every exigence. But it must be a reality, and not mere profession. It is no use to talk of leaning on God, while at the same time we are, in one way or another, looking to some poor mortal to help us. This is a sad delusion. But, alas! how often we fall under its power! We adopt the language of dependence upon God, but in reality we are looking to man, and letting him know our wants. We deceive ourselves, and dishonor God, and the end is disappointment and confusion of face.

Header, let us look closely and honestly at this matter. Let us see to it that we understand the meaning of those precious words, " Turned to God." They contain the very essence of true happiness and true holiness. When the heart is really turned to God, it has found the true, the divine secret of peace, rest, and full satisfaction, it finds its all in God, and has no occasion whatever to turn to the creature. Am I in any perplexity? I can look to God for guidance. He has promised to guide me with His eye. What perfect guidance! Can man do better for me? Surely not. God sees the end from the beginning. He knows all the bearings, all the belongings, all the roots and issues of my case. He is an infallible guide. His wisdom is unerring, and moreover He loves me perfectly. Where could I find a better guide?

Am I in want? I can go to God about it. He is the Possessor of heaven and earth. The treasures of the universe are at His disposal. He can help me, if He sees it to be good for me; and if not, the pressure will be much better for me than the relief. " My God shall supply all your need, according to his riches in glory, by Christ Jesus." Is not this enough? Why look to a creature stream? What a poor thing to have to make known our wants to a human being! It is in reality giving up, so far, the ground of faith, the life of simple dependence on God. It is actually dishonoring our Father. If I apply to my fellow for help, it is tantamount to saying that God has failed me. It is really betraying my loving Father who has taken me up, body, soul, and spirit, to do for me for time and eternity. He has pledged Himself to provide for all my wants, be they ever so many, ever so great, ever so varied. " He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?"

But we sometimes hear people say that the Lord has told them, or laid it upon their hearts, to apply to some human resource. This is very questionable indeed. It is not at all likely that our God would ever lead us to forsake the Fountain of living waters, and betake ourselves to some broken cistern. His word is, " Call upon me"—not upon your fellow—" in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me."

True it is that God uses the creature to meet our need; but this is a totally different matter. The blessed apostle could say, " God who comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus." Paul was looking to God for comfort, and God sent Titus to comfort him. Had Paul been looking to Titus, he would have been disappointed.

Thus it is in every case. Our immediate and exclusive reference must be to God in all our need. " We have turned to God from idols;" and hence, in every exigence He is our sure resource. We can go to Him for counsel, for succor, for guidance, for sympathy, for all. " My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defense; I shall not be moved."

Will this most blessed habit of looking only to God lead us to undervalue the channels through which His precious grace flows to us? The very reverse. How could I undervalue one who comes to me directly from God, as His manifest instrument, to meet my need? Impossible. But I value him as a channel, instead of applying to him as a source. This makes all the difference. We must never forget that true conversion means our being brought to God; and, most surely, if we are brought to God, it is in order that we should find in Him a perfect covering for our eyes, a perfect object for the heart, a perfect resource in all our exigencies, from first to last. A truly converted soul is one who is turned from all creature confidences, human hopes, and earthly expectations, to find all he wants in the living and true God, and that forever.

(To he continued, if the Lord will)

Conversion: What Is It? Part 7

We are now called to consider a deeply practical point in our subject. It is contained in the clause, " To serve the living and true God" This is full of interest to every truly converted soul—every true Christian. We are called " to serve." Our whole life, from the moment of our conversion to the close of our earthly career, should be characterized by a spirit of true, earnest, intelligent service. This is our high privilege, not to say our hallowed duty. It matters not what our sphere of action may be, what our line of life, or what our calling; when we are converted, we have just got one thing to do, namely, to serve God. If there be anything in our calling which is contrary to the revealed will of God—contrary to the direct teaching of His word—then we must at once abandon it, cost what it may. The very first step of an obedient servant is to step out of a false position.

Suppose, for example, the proprietor of a public-house is converted to God. What is he to do? Can he go on with such a business? Can he abide in such a calling with God? Can he continue in the sale of that which entails ruin, misery, degradation, death, and perdition on thousands and hundreds of thousands? Can he possibly serve the living and true God in the bar of a public-house?

We cannot believe it. We may be deemed harsh, severe, and narrow, in writing thus. We cannot help that. We must write what we believe to be the truth.

We are persuaded that the very first act of a converted public-house keeper should be to shut up his shop, and turn his back, with stern decision, on such a godless, horrible calling. To talk of serving God in such an occupation is, in our judgment, a miserable delusion.

No doubt, the same may be said of many other callings, and the reader may feel disposed to ask, " What is a Christian to do? How can he get on?" Our answer is simply this: We are called to serve God, and everything must be tried by this standard. The Christian has to ask himself this one question—" Can I fulfill the duties of this situation to the glory of God?" If not, he must abandon it. If we cannot connect the Name of God with our calling in life, then, assuredly, if we want to walk with God, if we aim at serving Him, if it be our one desire to be found well-pleasing in His sight—then we must give up that calling, and look to Him to open some path for us in which we can walk to His praise.

This He will do, blessed be His Name. He never fails a trusting soul. All we have to do is to cleave to Him with purpose of heart, and He will make the way plain before us. It may seem difficult at first. The path may appear narrow, rough, lonely; but our simple business is to stand for God, and not to continue for one hour in connection with anything contrary to His revealed will. A tender conscience, a single eye, a devoted heart, will settle many a question, solve many a difficulty, remove many a barrier. Indeed the very instincts of the divine nature, if only they be allowed to act, will guide in many a perplexity. " The light of the body is the eye; therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light." When the purpose of the heart is true to Christ—true to His name and cause—true to the service of God, the Holy Spirit opens up the precious treasures of divine revelation to the soul, and pours a flood of living light upon the understanding, so that we see the path of service as clear as a sunbeam before us, and we have only got to tread it with a firm step.

But we must never, for one moment, lose sight of the grand fact that we are converted to the service of God. The outcome of the life which we possess must ever take the form of service to the living and true God. In our unconverted days we worshipped idols, and served divers lusts and pleasures; now, on the contrary, we worship God in the Spirit, and we are called to serve Him with all our ransomed powers. We have turned to God, to find in Him our perfect rest and satisfaction. There is not a single thing in the entire range of a creature's necessities, for time and eternity, that we cannot find in our own most gracious God and Father. He has treasured up in Christ, the Son of His love, all that can satisfy the desires of the new life in us. It is our privilege to have Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, and to be so rooted and grounded in love, as to be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Thus filled, satisfied, and strengthened, we are called to dedicate ourselves, spirit, soul, and body, to the service of Christ; to be steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. We should have nothing else to do in this world. Whatever cannot be done as service to Christ, ought not to be done at all. This simplifies the matter amazingly. It is our sweet privilege to do everything in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and to the glory of God. We sometimes hear people speak of "a secular calling," as contrasted with what is " sacred." We question the correctness of such a distinction. Paul made tents and planted churches, but in both he served the Lord Christ. All that a Christian does ought to be sacred, because it is done as service to God. If this were borne in mind, it would enable us to connect the very simplest duties of daily life with the Lord Himself, and to bring Him into them in such a way as to impart a holy dignity and interest to all that we have to do, from morning till night. In this way, instead of finding the duties of our calling a hindrance to our communion with God, we should actually make them an occasion of waiting on Him for wisdom and grace to discharge them aright, so that His holy Name might be glorified in the most minute details of practical life.

The fact is that the service of God is a much simpler matter than some of us imagine. It does not consist in doing some wonderful things beyond the bounds of our divinely appointed sphere of action. Take the case of a domestic servant. How can she serve the living and true God? She cannot go about visiting and talking. Her sphere of action lies in the shade and retirement of her master's house. Were she to run about from house to house, she would be actually neglecting her proper work, her divinely appointed business. Hearken to the following sound and wholesome words:

" Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again; not purloining, but showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things." Titus 2:9, 10.

Here we see that the servant, by obedience, humility, and honesty can adorn the doctrine of God just as effectually, according to her measure, as an evangelist ranging the world over in the discharge of his high and holy commission.

Again, we read, " Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good-will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men; knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free." Eph. 6

How lovely is all this! What a fine field of service is opened up for us here! How beautiful this " fear and trembling!" Where do we see it now-a-days? Where is the holy subjection to authority? Where the singleness of eye? Where the willing-hearted service? Alas! we see headiness and high-mindedness, self-will, self-pleasing, and self-interest. How must all these things dishonor the Lord, and grieve His Holy Spirit! How needful that our souls should be roused to a sense of what becomes us as those who are called to serve the living and true God! Is it not a signal mercy to every true Christian to know that he can serve and glorify God in the most commonplace domestic duties? If it were not so, what would become of ninety-nine out of every hundred Christians?

We have taken up the case of an ordinary domestic servant, in order to illustrate that special line of practical truth now under our consideration. Is it not most blessed for us to know that our God graciously condescends to connect His Name and His glory with the very humblest duties that can devolve upon us in our ordinary domestic life? It is this which imparts dignity, interest, and freshness to every little act, from morning till night. "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men/é Here lies the precious secret of the whole matter. It is not working for wages, but serving the Lord Christ, and looking to Him to receive the reward of the inheritance.

Oh, that all this were more fully realized and illustrated amongst us! What moral elevation it would give to the entire christian life! What a triumphant answer it would furnish to the infidel! What a withering rebuke to all his sneers and cavils! Better by far than ten thousand learned arguments. There is no argument so forcible as an earnest, devoted, holy, happy, self-sacrificing christian life, and this life can be displayed by one whose sphere of action is bounded by the four walls of a kitchen.

And not only does the practical life of a true Christian afford the very best possible answer to the skeptic and the infidel, but it also meets, in a most satisfactory manner, the objections of those "who talk about works, and insist upon putting Christians under the law, in order to teach them how to live. "When people challenge us as to our not preaching up works, we simply ask them, " For what should we preach works?" The unconverted man cannot do any works, save " wicked works," or " dead works." There is not a single thought of his heart, not a single word of his lips, not a single act of his life, for which he does not righteously deserve the flames of an everlasting hell. "They that are in the flesh"—unconverted people—" cannot please God/' Of what possible use can it be to preach works to such? It can only cast dust in their eyes, blind their minds, deceive their hearts, and send them down to hell with a lie in their right hand.

There must be genuine conversion to God. This is a divine work, from first to last. And what has the converted man got to do? He certainly has not to work for life, because he has it, even life eternal, as God's free gift, through Jesus Christ our Lord. He has not to work for salvation, because he is saved already -" saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation." What, then, is he called to do? "To serve the living and true God." How? When? Where? In everything; at all times, and in all places. The converted man has nothing else to do but to serve God. If he does anything else, he is positively untrue, unfaithful to that blessed Lord and Master, who, ere ever He called him to serve, endowed him with the life, and the grace, and the power, whereby alone the service can be rendered.

Yes, reader, the Christian is called to serve. Let us never forget this. He is privileged to "present his body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is his reasonable, his intelligent service." This settles the whole question. It removes all difficulties; it silences all objections; it puts everything in its right place. It is not a question of what I am doing, but how I do it—not where I am, but how I conduct myself. Christianity, as displayed in the New Testament, is the outcome of the life of Christ in the believer; it is Christ reproduced in the Christian's daily life, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Everything the Christian touches, everything he does, everything he says, his whole practical life, from Lord's day morning till Saturday night, should bear the impress, and breathe the spirit, of that great practical clause on which we have been dwelling—"serving the living and true God." May it be so more and more! May all the Lord's beloved people, everywhere, be really stirred up to seek more earnest, out-and-out, whole-hearted devotedness to Christ and His precious service!

(To he concluded in our next, if the Lord will.)

Conversion: What Is It? Part 1

The first chapter of first Thessalonians presents a very striking and beautiful picture of what we may truly call genuine conversion. We propose to study the picture in company with the reader. If we are not much mistaken, we shall find the study at once interesting and profitable. It will, most assuredly, furnish an answer distinct and clear, to the question which stands at the head of this article, namely, What is conversion?

Nor is this, by any means, a small matter. It is well, in days like these, to have a divine answer to such a question. We hear a good deal, now-a-days, about cases of conversion; and we would heartily bless God for every soul truly converted to Him.

We need hardly say we believe in the absolute, the indispensable, the universal necessity of divine conversion. Let a man be what he may; be he Jew or Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, Protestant or Roman Catholic; in short, whatever be his nationality, his ecclesiastical position, or his theological creed, he must be converted, else he is on the broad and direct road to an everlasting hell.

There is no one born a Christian, in the divine sense of that word. Neither can any one be educated into Christianity. It is a fatal mistake, a deadly delusion, a deceit of the arch-enemy of souls, for any one to think that he can be a Christian, either by birth or education, or that he can be made a Christian by water baptism, or by any religious ceremony whatsoever. A man becomes a Christian only by being divinely converted. What this conversion is, we shall see in the course of our present study. What we would, at the very outset, insist upon, and earnestly press on the attention of all whom it may concern, is the urgent and absolute necessity, in every case, of true conversion to God.

This cannot be set aside. It is the height of folly for any one to attempt to ignore or to make light of it. For an immortal being—one who has a boundless eternity stretching away before him, to neglect the solemn question of his conversion, is the wildest fatuity of which any one can possibly be guilty. In comparison with this most weighty subject, all other things dwindle into utter insignificance. The various objects that engage the thoughts and absorb the energies of men and women in the busy scene around us, are but as the small dust of the balance in comparison with this one grand, momentous question of the soul's conversion to God. All the speculations of commercial life, all the schemes of money making, the absorbing question of profitable investment, all the pursuits of the pleasure hunter—the theater, the concert, the ball-room, the billiard room, the card table, the dice box, the race course, the hunting ground, the drinking saloon—all the numberless and nameless things that the poor unsatisfied heart longs after, and grasps at—all are but as the vapor of the morning, the foam on the water, the smoke from the chimney top, the withered leaf of autumn—all vanish away, and leave an aching void behind. The heart remains unsatisfied, the soul unsaved, because unconverted.

And what then? Ah! yes; what then? Tremendous question! What remains at the end of all this scene of commercial excitement, political strife and ambition, money making and pleasure hunting? Why then the man has to face death! "It is appointed unto men once to die." There is no getting over this. There is no discharge in this war. All the wealth of the universe could not purchase one moment's respite at the hand of the ruthless foe. All the medical skill which earth affords, all the fond solicitude of affectionate relatives and friends, all their tears, all their sighs, all their entreaties cannot stave off the dreaded moment or cause the king of terrors to sheathe his terrible sword. Death cannot be disposed of by any art of man. The moment mast come when the link is to be snapped which connects the heart with all the fair and fascinating scenes of human life. Fondly loved friends, charming pursuits, coveted objects, all must be given up. A thousand worlds could not avert the stroke. Death must be looked at straight in the face. It is an awful mystery—a tremendous fact—a stern reality. It stands full in front of every unconverted man, woman, and child beneath the canopy of heaven; and it is merely a question of time, hours, days, months, or years, when the boundary line must be crossed which separates time, with all its empty, vain, shadowy pursuits, from eternity with all its stupendous realities.

And what then? Let scripture answer. Nothing else can. Men would fain reply according to their own vain notions. They would have us believe that after death comes annihilation. " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Empty conceit! Vain delusion! Foolish dream of the human imagination blinded by the god of this world! How could an immortal soul be annihilated? Man, in the garden of Eden, became the possessor of a never dying spirit. " The Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul é'—not a dying soul. The soul must live forever. Converted or unconverted, it has eternity before it. Oh! the overpowering weight of this consideration to every thoughtful spirit! No human mind can grasp its immensity. It is beyond our comprehension, but not beyond our belief.

Let us hearken to the voice of God. What does scripture teach? One line of holy scripture is quite sufficient to sweep away ten thousand arguments and theories of the human mind. Does death annihilate? Nay! "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment."

Mark these words, " After this the judgment." And this applies only to those who die in their sins—only to unbelievers. For the Christian, judgment is passed forever, as scripture teaches in manifold places. It is important to note this, because men tell us that, inasmuch as there is eternal life only in Christ, therefore all who are out of Christ shall be annihilated.

Not so says the word of God. There is judgment after death. And what will be the issue of the judgment? Again scripture speaks in language as clear as it is solemn and impressive. " And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before the throne; and the books were opened; and another book, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in books, according to their ivories. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it: and death and hades delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works. This is the second death—the lake of fire. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." Rev. 20

All this is as plain as words can make it. There is not the slightest ground for demur or difficulty. For all whose names are in the book of life, there is no judgment at all. Those whose names are not in that book shall be judged according to their works. And what then? Annihilation? Nay; but,'' the lake of fire;" and that forever and forever.

How overwhelming is the thought of this! Surely it ought to rouse every soul to the serious consideration of the great subject now before us, namely, the urgent need of conversion to God. This is the only way of escape. An unconverted person, whoever and whatever he is, has death, judgment, and the lake of fire before him, and every throb of his pulse brings him nearer and nearer to those awful realities. It is not more sure that the sun shall rise, at a certain moment, tomorrow morning, than that the reader must, ere long, pass into eternity; and if his name is not in the book of life—if be is not converted—if he is not in Christ, he will, assuredly, be judged according to his works, and the certain issue of that judgment will be the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, and that through the endless ages of a dark and gloomy eternity. Oh! the terrible monotony of hell!

The reader may perhaps marvel at our dwelling at such length on this dreadful theme. He may feel disposed to ask, " Will this convert people?" If it does not convert them, it may lead them to see their need of conversion. It may lead them to see their imminent danger. It may induce them to flee from the wrath to come. Why did the blessed apostle reason with Felix on the subject of " judgment to come?" Surely that he might persuade him to turn from his evil ways and live. Why did our blessed Lord Himself so constantly press upon His hearers the solemn reality of eternity? Why did He so often speak of the deathless worm and the unquenchable fire? Surely it was for the purpose of rousing them to a sense of their danger, that they might flee for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before them.

Are we wiser than He? Are we more tender? Have we found out some better mode of converting people? Are we to be afraid of pressing upon our readers or our hearers, the same solemn theme which our Lord so pressed upon the men of His time? Are we to shrink from offending polite ears by the plain declaration that all who die unconverted must inevitably stand before the great white throne, and pass into the lake of fire? God forbid! It must not be. We solemnly call upon the unconverted reader in this our opening paper for the year 1878, to give his undivided attention to the all important question of his soul's salvation. Let nothing induce him to neglect it. Let neither cares, pleasures, nor duties so occupy him as to hide from his view the magnitude and deep seriousness of this matter. "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

Oh! reader, if thou art unsaved, unconverted, let us earnestly entreat thee to ponder these things. If God permit, we hope, in a future paper, to unfold what conversion is—how it is effected, and what it involves. But, just now, it seems pressed upon us in the form of a solemn duty to seek to rouse thee to a sense of thy need of being savingly converted to God. This is the only way of entering His kingdom. So our Lord Christ distinctly tells us; and we trust you know this, at least, that not one jot or tittle of His holy sayings can ever pass away. Heaven and earth shall pass away; but His word can never pass away. All the power of earth and hell, men and devils, cannot make void the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Either of two things for thee—conversion here, or eternal damnation hereafter.

Thus it stands if we are to be guided by the word of God; and, in view of this, is it possible for us to be too earnest, too vehement, too importunate in urging upon every unconverted soul with whom we may come in contact, either with voice or pen, the indispensable necessity, this very moment, of fleeing from the wrath to come, fleeing to that blessed Savior who died on the cross for our salvation; who stands with open arms to receive all who come; and who declares in His own sweet and precious grace, "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out."

(To be continued, if the Lord will)

Conversion: What Is It? Part 3

Having thus far, seen the absolute necessity, in every case, of conversion, and having, in some measure, sought to point out what conversion is not, we have now to inquire what it is. And here we must keep close to the veritable teaching of holy scripture. We can accept nothing less, nothing different. It is greatly to be feared that very much of what passes, now-a-days, for conversion is not conversion at all. Many so-called cases of conversion are published and talked of, which cannot stand the test of the word of God. Many profess to be converted, and are accredited as such, who prove to be merely stony-ground hearers. There is no depth of spiritual work in the heart, no real action of the truth of God on the conscience, no thorough breaking with the world. It may be the feelings are wrought upon by human influence, and certain evangelical sentiments take possession of the mind; but self is not judged; there is a clinging to earth and nature; a lack of that deep-toned earnestness and genuine reality which so remarkably characterize the conversions recorded in the New Testament, and for which we may always look where the work of conversion is divine.

We do not here attempt to account for all these superficial cases; we merely refer to them in order that all who are engaged in the blessed work of evangelization may be led to consider the matter in the light of holy scripture, and to see how far their own mode of working may call for holy correction. It may be there is too much of the merely human element in our work. We do not leave the Spirit of God to act. We are deficient in profound faith in the power and efficacy of the simple word of God itself. There may be too much effort to work on the feelings, too much of the emotional and the sensational. Perhaps, too, in our desire to reach results—a desire which may be right enough in itself—we are too ready to accredit and announce, as cases of conversion, many which, alas! are merely ephemeral.

All this demands our serious consideration. It is of the very last possible importance that we allow the Spirit of God to work and to display—as He most assuredly will—the fruit of His work. All that He does is well done, and it will speak for itself in due time. There is no necessity for us to blaze abroad our cases of conversion. All that is divinely real will shine out to the praise of Him to whom all praise is due; and then the workman will have his own deep and holy joy. He will see the results of His work, and think of them in adoring homage and worship at his Master's feet—the only safe and truly happy place to think of them.

Will this lessen our earnestness? The very reverse; it will intensify our earnestness immensely. We shall be more earnest in pleading with God in secret, and in pleading with our fellows in public. We shall feel more deeply the divine seriousness of the work, and our own utter insufficiency. We shall ever cherish the wholesome conviction that the work must be of God from first to last. This will keep us in our right place, namely, the blessed place of self-emptied dependence upon God, who is the Doer of all the works that are done upon the earth. We shall be more on our faces before the mercy-seat, both in the closet and in the assembly, in reference to the glorious work of conversion; and then, when the golden sheaves and mellow clusters appear, when genuine cases of conversion turn up—cases which speak for themselves, and carry their own credentials with them to all who are capable of judging—then verily shall our hearts be filled with praise to the God of all grace who has magnified the name of His Son Jesus Christ in the salvation of precious souls.

How much better is this than to have our poor hearts puffed up with pride and self-complacency by reckoning up our cases of conversion! How much better, safer and happier to be bowed in worship before the throne, than to have our names heralded to the ends of the earth as great preachers and wonderful evangelists! No comparison, in the judgment of a truly spiritual person. The dignity, reality, and seriousness of the work will be realized; the happiness, the moral security, and the real usefulness of the workman will be promoted; and the glory of God secured and maintained.

Let us see how all this is illustrated in 1 Thess. 1 " Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the assembly of the Thessalonians in God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ: grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love, and patience of hope"—the grand elements of true Christianity—" in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of Gad and our Father; knowing, brethren, beloved of God, your election." How did he know it? By the clear and unquestionable evidence afforded in their practical life—the only way in which the election of any one can be known. "For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake"

The blessed apostle was, in his daily life, the exponent of the gospel which he preached. He lived the gospel. lie did not demand or exact aught of them. He was not burdensome to them. He preached unto them the precious gospel of God freely; and in order that he might do so, he wrought with labor and travail, night and day. He was as a loving, tender nurse, going in and out among them. There were with him no high-sounding words about himself, or his office, or his authority, or his gifts, or his preaching, or his wonderful doings in other places. He was the loving, lowly, unpretending, earnest, devoted workman, whose work spoke for itself, and whose whole life, his spirit, style, deportment, and habits, were in lovely harmony with his preaching.

How needful for all workmen to ponder these things I we may depend upon it that very much of the shallowness of our work is the fruit of the shallowness of the workman. Where is the power? Where is the demonstration of the Spirit? Where is the "much assurance?" Is there not a terrible lack of these things in our preaching? There may be a vast amount of fluent talking; a great deal of so-called cleverness; and much that may tickle the ear, act on the imagination, awaken a temporary interest, and minister to mere curiosity. But oh! where is the holy unction, the living earnestness, the profound seriousness? And then the living exponent in the daily life and habits—where is this? May the Lord revive His work in the hearts of His workmen, and then we may look for more of the results of the work.

Do we mean to teach that the work of conversion depends upon the workman? Far away be the monstrous notion! The work depends wholly and absolutely on the power of the Holy Ghost, as the very chapter now lying open before us proves beyond ail question. It must ever hold good, in every department and every stage of the work, that it is " not by might nor by power; but by my Spirit, saith the Lord."

But what kind of instrument does the Spirit ordinarily use? Is not this a weighty question for us workmen? What sort of vessels are "meet for the Master's use?" Empty vessels—clean vessels. Are we such? Are we emptied of ourselves? Are we cured of our deplorable self-occupation? Are we "clean?" Have we clean hands? Are our associations, our ways, our circumstances, clean? If not, how can the Master use us in His holy service? May we all have grace to weigh these questions in the divine presence! May the Lord stir us all up, and make us more and more, vessels such as He can use for His glory!

We shall now proceed with our quotation. The whole passage is full of power. The character of the^ workman on the one hand, and of the work on the other, demands our most serious attention.

" And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost: so that ye were ensamples [or models] to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak anything, for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you."

This was real work. It carried its own credentials with it. There was nothing vague or unsatisfactory about it—no occasion for any reserve in forming or expressing a judgment respecting it. It was clear, distinct, and unmistakable. It bore the stamp of the Master's hand, and carried conviction to every mind capable of weighing the evidence. The work of conversion was wrought, and the fruits of conversion followed in delightful profusion. The testimony went forth far and wide, so that the workman had no need to speak about his work. There was no occasion for him to reckon up and publish the number of conversions at Thessalonica. All was divinely real. It was a thorough work of God's Spirit as to which there could be no possible mistake, and about which it was superfluous to speak.

The apostle had simply preached the word in the power of the Holy Ghost, in much assurance. There was nothing vague, nothing doubtful about his testimony. He preached as one who fully believed and thoroughly entered into what he was preaching about. It was not the mere fluent utterance of certain known and acknowledged truths—not the cut and dry statement of certain barren dogmas. No; it was the living outpouring of the glorious gospel of God, coming from a heart that felt profoundly every utterance, and falling upon hearts prepared by God's Spirit for its reception.

Such was the work at Thessalonica—a deep, solid, blessed, thorough divine work—all sound and real, the genuine fruit of God's Spirit. It was no mere religious excitement, nothing sensational, no high pressure, no attempt to " get up a revival." All was beautifully calm. The workman, as we are told in Acts 17, " came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews; and as his manner was, he went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures"—Precious, powerful reasoning! would to God we had more of it in our midst!—" opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead, and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ."

How simple! Preaching Jesus out of the scriptures! Yes, here lay the grand secret of Paul's preaching. He preached a living Person, in living power, on the authority of a living word, and this preaching was received in living faith, and brought forth living fruit, in the lives of the converts. This is the sort of preaching we want. It is not sermonizing, not religious talking, but the powerful preaching of Christ by the Holy Ghost speaking through men who are thoroughly impressed with what they are preaching. God grant us more of this!

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 5

We must still linger a little over the deeply interesting and instructive scene in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew. It brings before us two great subjects, namely, " The church" and " The kingdom of heaven." These things must never be confounded. As to the first, it is only to be found in the New Testament. Indeed, as has often been remarked, verse 18 of our chapter contains the very first direct allusion in the volume of God, to the subject of the church or assembly of Christ.

This, though familiar to many of our readers, may present a difficulty to others. Many Christians and christian teachers strongly maintain that the doctrine of the church is distinctly unfolded in Old Testament scripture. They consider that the saints of the Old Testament belonged to the church; in fact, that there is no difference whatever; all form one great family; all stand on one common ground; and that to represent the Lord's people in New Testament times as in a higher position or endowed with higher privileges than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the most complete delusion possible—a wild imagination of modern days, possessing not a shadow of scripture authority. It seems perfectly monstrous to such to assert that Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, did not belong to the church -were not members of the body of Christ—were not endowed with the selfsame privileges as believers now. Trained from their earliest days to believe that all God's people, from the beginning to the end of time, stand on the same ground, are members of the one great family, bound up in the same bundle of life, and form one body, they find it impossible to admit of any difference. It seems to them the height of presumption on the part of Christians to assert that they are, in any respect, different from God's beloved people of old—those blessed worthies of whom we read in Heb. 11 who lived a life of faith and personal devotedness, and who are now in heaven with their Lord.

But the all important question is, "What saith the scripture?" It can be of no possible use to set up our own thoughts, our own reasonings, our own conclusions, in opposition to the word of God. It is a very easy matter for men to reason, with great apparent force, point, and cleverness, about the absurdity and wild presumption of the notion that Christians are better and higher and more privileged than God's people of old.

But this is not the proper way in which to approach this great subject. It is not a question of the difference personally between the Lord's people at different periods. Were it so, where should we find, amongst the ranks of christian professors, any one to compare with an Abraham, a Joseph, a Moses, or a Daniel? Were it a question of simple faith, where could we find, in the entire history of the church, a finer example than the father of the faithful? Were it a question of personal holiness, where could we find a brighter illustration than Joseph? For intimate acquaintance with the ways of God and entrance into His mind, who could go beyond Moses? For unswerving devotedness to God and His truth, could we find a brighter example than the man who went down into the lions' den rather than not pray toward Jerusalem?

However, let it be distinctly understood that it is not, by any means, a personal question, or a comparison of people; but simply of dispensational position. If this be clearly seen, it will, we doubt not, remove out of the way a great deal of the difficulty which many pious people seem to feel in reference to the truth of the church.

But, above and beyond all this, stands the question, What does scripture teach on the subject? If anyone had spoken to Abraham about being a member of the body of Christ, would he have understood it? Could that honored and beloved saint of God have had the most remote idea of being linked, by an indwelling Spirit, to a living Head in heaven? Utterly impossible. How could he be a member of a body which had no existence? And how could there be a body without a Head? And when do we first hear of the Head? When the Man Christ Jesus, having passed through death and the grave, ascended into the heavens, and took His seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Then, and not until then, did the Holy Ghost come down to form the body and link it, by His presence, to the glorified Head above.

This, however, is rather anticipating a line of argument which is yet to come before us. Let us here put another question to the reader. If anyone had spoken to Moses about a body composed of Jews and Gentiles—a body whose constituent parts had been drawn from among the seed of Abraham and the cursed race of the Canaanites, what would he have said? May we not safely assert that his whole moral being would have shrunk with horror from the thought? What! Jews and Canaanites—the seed of Abraham and uncircumcised Gentiles united in one body? Impossible for the lawgiver to take in such an idea. The fact is if there was one feature which, more strongly than another, marked the Jewish economy it was the rigid separation, by divine appointment, of Jew and Gentile. " Ye know," says Simon Peter, " how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or to come unto one of another nation."

Such was the order of things under the Mosaic economy. It would have been a flagrant transgression on the part of a Jew to climb over that middle wall of partition which separated him from all the nations around; and hence the thought of a union between Jew and Gentile could not possibly have entered into any human mind; and the more faithful a man was to the existing order of things under the law, the more opposed he must have been to any such thought.

Now, in the face of all this, how can anyone seek to maintain that the truth of the church was known in Old Testament times; and that there is no difference whatever between the position of a Christian and that of an Old Testament believer? The fact is that even Simon Peter himself found it extremely difficult to take in the idea of admitting the Gentiles into the kingdom of heaven. Though he was entrusted with the keys of that kingdom, he was very reluctant indeed to use the key which was to admit the Gentiles. He had to be expressly taught by a heavenly vision, ere he was prepared to fulfill the commission with which he was charged by his Lord in Matt. 16

No, reader, it is of no possible use to stand against the plain testimony of scripture. The truth of the church was not—could not be known, in Old Testament times. It was, as the inspired apostle tells us, " Hid in God"—hid in His eternal counsels—" not made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel." Eph. 3

We can only reach the great mystery of the church by walking over the ruins of the middle wall of partition. " Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, ai without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall (partition; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, th law of commandments in ordinances, for to make h himself of twain one new man, making peace. And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby; and came an preached peace to you which were afar off, and to then that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.'

Thus, from all that has passed before us, the reader will, we trust, fully see why it is that our Lord in His word to Simon Peter, speaks of the church as a future thing. " Upon this rock, I will build my church." He does not say, "I have been" or "lam building my church., Nothing of the kind. It could not be. It was still " hid in God." The Messiah had to be cut off and have nothing—nothing, for the present, as regards Israel and the earth. He must be rejected, crucified, and slain, in order to lay the foundation of the church. It was utterly impossible that a single stone could be laid in this new, this wondrous building, until " the chief corner-stone" had passed through death and taken His place in the heavens. It was not in incarnation but in resurrection that our Lord Christ became Head of a body.

Now our apostle was not the least prepared for this. He did not understand one jot or tittle of it. That Messiah should set up a kingdom, in power and glory—that He should restore Israel to their destined pre-eminence in the earth—all this he could understand and appreciate—he was looking for it. But a suffering Messiah—a rejected, and crucified Christ—of this he could not hear, just then. " Be it far from thee, Lord; this shall not be unto thee." These were the words which drew forth that withering rebuke with which we closed our last paper, " Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offense unto me; for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men."

We may gather the gravity of his error from the severity of the rebuke. Peter had much to learn—much to go through, ere he could grasp the great truth which His Lord was putting before him. But he did grasp it, by the grace of God, and confess it, and teach it with power. He was led to see not only that Christ was the Son of the living God; but that He was a rejected stone, disallowed of men, but chosen of God and precious; and that all who, through grace, come to Him, must share His rejection on earth as well as His acceptance in heaven. They are perfectly identified with Him.

(To be continued, if the Lord will.)

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 2

The notice which we have of our apostle, in John 1, is very brief indeed, though, doubtless, there is much wrapped up in it. " Andrew first findeth his own brother, Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jonas: Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone."

Now, we have no record here of any deep spiritual work in the soul of Simon. We are told his name in the old creation, and his name in the new; but there is no allusion whatever to those deep exercises of soul of which we know he was the subject. For these we must ask the reader to turn for a few moments to Luke 5, where we have a marvelous piece of divine workmanship.

" And it came to pass, that as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, and saw two ships standing by the lake; but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship."

Mark especially the moral grace that shines here. " He prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land." Though Lord of all creation—Possessor of heaven and earth—He nevertheless, as the lowly, gracious man, courteously owns Simon's proprietorship, and asks, as a favor, that he would thrust out a little from the shore. This was morally lovely, and we may rest assured it produced its own effect upon the heart of Simon.

" Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draft." Simon was about to be well paid for the loan of his boat. " And Simon, answering, said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing; nevertheless, at thy word, I will let down the net." There was power, as well as grace, in that word! " And when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes; and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink." Neither their nets nor their ships were able to sustain the marvelous fruit of divine power and goodness. " When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, Ο Lord."

Here, then, we have the great practical effect produced in Peter's soul by the combined action of grace and power. He is brought to see himself in the light of the divine presence, where alone self can be truly seen and judged. Simon had heard the word of Jesus addressed to the multitude on the shore. He had felt the sweet grace and moral beauty of His way toward himself. He had marked the display of divine power in the astonishing draft of fish. All told powerfully upon his heart and conscience, and brought him on his face before the Lord.

Now this is what we may call a genuine work of conviction. Simon is in the place of true self-judgment—a very blessed place indeed—a place from which all must start if they are to be much used in the Lord's work, or if, indeed, they are ever to exhibit much depth or stability in the divine life. We need never look for any real power or progress unless there is a deep and solid work of the Spirit of God in the conscience. Persons who pass rapidly into what they call peace, are apt to pass as rapidly out of it again. It is a very serious thing indeed to be brought to see ourselves in the light of God's presence, to have our eyes opened to the truth of our past history, our present condition, and our future destiny. Simon Peter found it so in his day, and so have all those who have been brought to a saving knowledge of Christ. Hearken to Isaiah's words, when he saw himself in the powerful light of the divine glory. " Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts." So also in the case of the patriarch, Job. " I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

These glowing utterances reveal a deep and genuine work in both the patriarch and the prophet. And surely our apostle occupied the same moral ground when he exclaimed, from the very depths of a broken heart, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, Ο Lord." If Simon is to be called Cephas, he must be thoroughly broken up, and brought to the end of himself. If he is to be used to catch men, he must learn, in a divine way, man's true condition. If he is to teach others that "all flesh is as grass," he must learn the application of this great truth to his own heart.

Thus it is in every case. Look at Saul of Tarsus. What mean those three days of blindness, during which he neither did eat nor drink? May we not confidently affirm that they were serious days, perhaps the most serious in the entire history of that remarkable man? They were, doubtless, days in the which he was led down to the most profound depths of his moral being, the deepest roots of his history, his nature, his character, his conduct, his religion. He was led to see that his whole life had been a terrible mistake, an awful lie; that his very career as a religious man had been one of mad rebellion against the Christ of God. All this, we may feel assured, passed in solemn and soul-subduing review before the soul of this deeply, because divinely, convicted man. His repentance was no superficial work; it was deep and thorough; it left its impress upon the whole of his after course, character, and ministry. He, too, like Simon, was brought to the end of himself, and there he found an object that not only met his deepest need, but also perfectly satisfied all the cravings and aspirations of his renewed being.

Now, we must confess we delight in contemplating a spiritual work of this kind. It is truly refreshing to dwell upon conversions of this type. We greatly fear that in much of the work of our time there is a sad Jack of depth and spiritual power, and, as a consequence, a lack of stability in the christian character, and of permanency in the christian course. It may be that those of us who are engaged in the work of evangelization are feeble and shallow in the divine life ourselves, that we are not near enough to Christ to understand how to deal with souls; that we do not know how to present the truth from God's side of it; that we are more desirous of showing out how the sinner's need is met, than how the glory of God is secured and maintained. We do not, perhaps, sufficiently press the claims of truth and holiness upon the consciences of our hearers. There is a want of fullness in the presentation of the truth of God, too much harping upon one string; there is a barrenness and dreary monotony in the preaching, arising from lack of abiding near the fountain head, and drinking into our own souls from the inexhaustible springs of grace and truth in the Person and work of Christ. Perhaps, too, we are more occupied with ourselves and our preaching than with Christ and His glory; more anxious to be able to parade the results of our work, than to be a sweet savor of Christ to God-ward.

We cannot but feel the weight and seriousness of these considerations for all who take part in the work of the gospel. We certainly do need to be more in the presence of God in reference to our service, for we cannot, by any possibility, hide from ourselves the fact, in reference to the preaching of this our day, that the fruit is small in quantity, and poor in quality. We do-sire to bless God for any display of His grace and power in souls; though we are by no means able to accredit as genuine much that is boastfully paraded in the way of conversion. What we long for is a deep, genuine, unmistakable work of the Holy Ghost, a work which will prove itself, beyond all contradiction, by its permanent results in the life and character. It is one thing to reckon up and publish a number of cases of conversion, and quite another to see these cases made good in actual fact. The Holy Ghost can, and does, tell us at times in the page of inspiration the number of souls converted. He tells us of three thousand on one occasion. He can do so, because He knows perfectly all about it. He can read the heart. He can distinguish between the spurious and the genuine. But when men undertake to count up and publish the number of their converts, we must receive their statements with considerable reserve and caution.

Not that we would be suspicious. God forbid; yea, we would earnestly cultivate a hopeful temper of soul. Still, we cannot but feel that it is better, in every case, to let the work speak for itself. All that is really divine is sure to be found, even though it be after many days; whereas on the other hand, there is immense danger, both for the workman and his work, in an eager and hasty reckoning up and publishing of results.

But we must return to the lake of Gennesaret, and dwell for a moment on the lovely grace that shines forth in our Lord's dealing with Simon Peter. The work 01 Conviction was deep and real. There could be no mistaking it. The arrow had entered the heart, and gone right to its very center. Peter felt and owned that he was a man full of sin. He felt he had no right to be near such an one as Jesus; and yet we may truly say he would not for worlds have been anywhere else. He was perfectly sincere in saying, "Depart from me," though we cannot but believe he had an inward conviction that the blessed One would do nothing of the kind. And if He had, He was right. Jesus could never depart from a poor broken-hearted sinner—no, never. It was His richest, deepest, joy to pour the healing balm of His love and grace into a wounded soul. It was His delight to heal the broken heart. He was anointed for that work, and it was His meat and His drink to do it, blessed forever be His holy name!

" And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men." Here was the divine response to the cry of a contrite heart. The wound was deep, but the grace was deeper still. The soothing hand of a Savior-God applied the precious balm. Simon was not only convicted, but converted. He saw himself to be a man full of sin, but he saw the Savior full of grace; nor was it possible that his sin could be beyond the reach of that grace. Oh, no! there is grace in the heart of Jesus, as there is power in His blood, to meet the very chief of sinners. "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him."

This was real work. It was a bona fide case, as to which there could be no question; a case of conviction, conversion, and consecration.

"He spread the banquet, made me eat, Bid all my fears remove; Yea, o'er my guilty rebel head, He placed His banner—Love."

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 8

We have now to follow our beloved apostle into the darkest and most humbling scene in his entire history—a scene which we could hardly understand or account for, if we did not know something of the infinite depths of divine grace, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, of the terrible depths into which even a saint of God, or an apostle of Christ, is capable of plunging, if not kept by divine power.

It seems very wonderful to find on the page of inspiration the record of the fall of such an eminent servant of Christ as Simon Peter. We in our wisdom would judge it best to draw the curtain of silence over such an event. Not so the Holy Ghost. He knows better, and is infinitely wiser than we. He has seen fit to tell us plainly of the errors, and failures, and sins of such men as Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, and Paul, in order that we may learn holy lessons from such records—lessons of human frailty, lessons of divine grace, lessons full of solemn warning, and yet of most precious consolation and encouragement. We learn what we are, and we learn what God is. We learn that we cannot trust ourselves for a single moment; for, if not kept by grace, there is no depth of sin into which we are not capable of falling; but we learn to trust the eternal stability of that grace which has dealt with the erring ones and sinning ones of other days, and to lean with ever-growing confidence on the One who is " the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."

But let us turn to our subject.

Not one of the four evangelists omits the fall of Peter. Let us open at Matt. 26: " And when they had sung an hymn they went out into the Mount of Olives. Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am risen again I will go before you into Galilee. Peter answered and said unto him, Though all shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended."

In these few words Peter lets out the real root of the whole matter. That root was self-confidence—alas! alas! no uncommon root amongst us. We do not in the least question Peter's sincerity. We feel perfectly sure he meant all he said; and, further, that he had not the most remote idea of what he was about to do. He was ignorant of himself, and we generally find that ignorance and self-confidence go together. Self-knowledge destroys self-confidence. The more fully self is known, the more it must be distrusted. If Peter had known himself, known his tendencies and capabilities, he never would have uttered the words which we have just penned. But so full was he of self-confidence, that when his Lord told him expressly what he was about to do, he replied, "Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee."

This is peculiarly solemn. It is full of instruction for us all. We are all so ignorant of our own hearts, that we deem ourselves incapable of falling into certain gross sins. But we should, everyone of us, bear in mind that, if not kept each moment by the grace of God, we are capable of anything. We have materials in us for any amount or character of evil; and whenever we hear any one saying, י י Well, I certainly am a poor, failing, stumbling creature, but I am not capable of doing the like of that," we may feel assured he does not know his own heart; and, not only so, but he is in imminent danger of falling into some grievous sin. It is well to walk humbly before our God, distrusting self, and leaning on Him. This is the true secret of moral safety, at all times. Had Peter realized this, it would have saved him his terrible downfall.

But Peter was self-confident, and, as a consequence, he failed to watch and pray. This was another stage in his downward journey. Had he only felt his utter weakness, he would have sought for strength divine. He would have cast himself on God for grace to help in time of need. Look at the blessed Master! He, though God over all blessed forever, yet being a Man, having taken the place of the creature, and fully entering into His position, was agonizing in prayer, while Peter was fast asleep. Yes, Peter slept in the garden of Gethsemane, while his Lord was passing through the deepest anguish He had yet tasted, though deeper still lay before Him. "Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, Ο my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What! could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

What tender grace! What readiness to make allowance! What moral elevation! And yet He felt the sad want of sympathy, the cold indifference to His sore agony. " I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none." How much is involved in these words! They tell a double tale. He looked for comforters. That perfect human heart craved sympathy; but, alas! there was none for Him. There was no one to minister a single drop of consolation to that loving heart in the hour of deepest anguish. He was left absolutely alone. Even Peter, who declared himself ready to die with Him, fell asleep in view of the agonies of Gethsemane.

Such is man—yea, the very best of men! Self-confident when he ought to be self-distrusting—sleeping when he ought to be watching; and, we may add, fighting when he ought to be submitting. " Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus." How incongruous, how utterly out of place, was a sword in company with the meek and lowly Sufferer! " Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Peter was entirely out of the current of his Master's spirit. He had not a thought in common with Him in reference to His path of suffering. He would fain defend Him with carnal weapons, forgetting that His kingdom was not of this world.

All this is peculiarly solemn. To find a dear and honored servant of Christ failing so grievously is surely sufficient to teach us to walk very softly. But, alas! we have not yet reached the lowest point in Peter's downward course. Having used his sword in defense of his Master, we next find him " following afar off." " Then took they Jesus, and led him, and brought him to the high priest's house. And Peter followed afar off. And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall, and were set down together, Peter sat down among them"

What company for an apostle of Christ! "Can a man touch pitch, and not be defiled by it? Can one walk on burning coals, and his feet not be burned?" It is terribly dangerous for the Christian to sit down among the enemies of Christ. The very fact of his doing so proves that decline has set in, and made serious progress. In Peter's case, the stages of decline are strongly marked. First, boasting in his own strength; secondly, sleeping when he ought to have been praying; thirdly, drawing his sword when he ought to have been meekly bowing his head; fourthly, following afar off; fifthly, making himself comfortable in the midst of the open enemies of Christ.

Then comes the last sad scene in this terrible drama. " And as Peter was beneath in the palace, there cometh one of the maids of the high priest; and when she saw Peter warming himself, she looked upon him, and said, And thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth. But he denied, saying, I know not, neither understand I, what thou sayest. And he went out into the porch; and the cock crew. And a maid saw him again, and began to say to them that stood by, This is one of them. And he denied it again. And a little after, they that stood by said again to Peter, Surely thou art one of them, for thou art a Galilean, and thy speech agreeth thereto. But he began to curse and to swear, I know not this man of whom ye speak. And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cockcrow twice thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon he wept." Mark 14:66-72.

Luke adds a most touching clause: " And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cockcrow thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly."

How deeply affecting is all this! Only think of a saint of God, and an apostle of Christ, cursing and swearing that he did not know his Lord! Does the reader feel disposed to question the fact that Peter was, spite of all this, a genuine saint of God? Some do question it; but their questioning is a gross mistake. They find it hard to conceive such a thing as a true child of God falling so terribly. But they have not yet thoroughly learned what flesh is. Peter was as really a saint of God in the palace of the high priest, as he was on the mount of transfiguration. But he had to learn himself, and that too by as humiliating and painful a process as any soul could well be called to pass through. Doubtless, if anyone had told Peter a few days before that he would ere long curse and swear that he did not know his Lord, he would have shrunk with horror from the thought. He might have said, like one of old, " Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" Yet so it was. We know not what we may do until we are in the circumstances. The great thing for us all is to walk humbly with our God day by day, deeply sensible of our own utter weakness, and clinging to Him who is able to keep us from falling. We are only safe in the shelter of His presence. Left to ourselves we are capable of anything, as our apostle found to his deep sorrow.

But the Lord was watching over His poor erring servant. He never lost sight of him for a single moment. He had His eye upon the whole process. The devil would have smashed the vessel in hopeless fragments if he could. But he could not. He was but an instrument in the divine hand to do a work for Peter, which Peter had failed to do for himself. " Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and when thou art converted [or restored] strengthen thy brethren."

Here we are permitted to see the root of the matter. Peter needed to be sifted, and Satan was employed to do the work. Just as in the case of Job, and the man in 1 Cor. 5 It seems very wonderful, very mysterious, very solemn, that Satan should be so used. Yet so it is. God uses him " for the destruction of the flesh." He cannot touch the spirit. That is eternally safe. But it is terrible work to get into Satan's sieve. Peter found it so, and so did Job, and so did that erring Corinthian.

But oh, the grace of those words! "I have prayed for thee"—not that he might not fall, but, having fallen, that his faith might not fail, his confidence might not give way. Nothing can surpass the grace that shines out here. The blessed One knew all that was to happen—the shameful denial—the cursing and swearing; and yet, "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not"—that thy confidence in the eternal stability of my grace may not give way.

Perfectly marvelous! And then the power of that look! " The Lord turned and looked upon Peter." It was this that broke Peter's heart, and drew forth a flood of bitter penitential tears.

(To be continued, if the Lord will.)

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 9

We are now called to consider the profoundly interesting subject of Simon Peter's restoration, in which we shall find some points of the utmost practical importance. If in his fall we learn the frailty and folly of man, in his restoration we learn the grace, wisdom, and faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ. The fall was, indeed, deep, terrible, and humiliating. The restoration was complete and marvelous. We may rest assured that Simon Peter will never forget either the one or other; nay, he will remember them with wonder, love, and praise, throughout the countless ages of eternity. The grace that shines in Peter's restoration is only second to the grace displayed in his conversion. Let us glance at some of the salient points. It can be but the merest glance, as our space is limited. And first let us look at the procuring cause.

This we have given us with peculiar force by the pen of the inspired evangelist Luke. " And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may sift thee as wheat." If Satan had been suffered to have his way, poor Simon would have been hopelessly ruined. But no; he was merely employed as an instrument, as he had been in Job's case, to do a needed work, and, when that work was done, he had to retire. He dare not go one hair's breadth beyond his appointed sphere. It is well to remember this. Satan is but a creature—crafty, wily, powerful, no doubt, but a creature who can only go as far as he is permitted by God. Had Peter walked softly, had he humbly and earnestly looked for divine help, had he been judging himself in secret, there would have been no need of Satan's sifting. Thanks be to God, Satan has no power whatever with a soul that walks humbly with God. There is perfect shelter, perfect safety, in the divine presence; and there is not an arrow in the enemy's quiver that can reach one who leans in simple confidence upon the arm of the living God. Here our apostle failed, and hence he had to pass through a very severe process indeed, in order that he might learn himself.

But, oh, the power and preciousness of those words, "I have prayed for thee!" Here assuredly lay the secret—here was the procuring cause of Simon's restoration. The prayer of Jesus sustained the soul of His erring servant in that terrible hour when the enemy would fain have crushed him to powder. What could Satan do in opposition to the all-powerful intercession of Christ? Nothing. That wonderful prayer was the ground of Peter's safety, when, to human view, all seemed hopelessly gone.

And for what did our Lord pray? Was it that Peter might not commit the awful sin of denying Him? Was it that he might not curse and swear? Clearly not. What then? "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not."

Can aught exceed the grace that shines here? That gracious, loving, faithful Lord, in view of Peter's terrible sin—knowing all he was about to do—all the sad forgetfulness, could actually plead for him that, spite of all, his confidence might not give way—that he might not lose the sense of the eternal stability of that grace which had taken him up from the depth of his ruin and guilt.

Matchless grace! Nothing can surpass it in brightness and blessedness. Had it not been for this prayer, Peter's confidence must have given way. He never could have survived the awful struggle through which his soul passed when thinking of his dreadful sin. When he came to himself, when he reflected upon the whole scene, his expressions of devotedness, " Though all should deny thee, yet will I never deny thee"—" Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee"—"I am ready to go with thee to prison and to death." To think of all these words, and yet that he should deny his beloved Lord with cursing and swearing, was perfectly overpowering.

It is a dreadful moment in the soul's history when one wakes up to the consciousness of having committed sin—sin against light, knowledge, and privilege—sin against divine grace and goodness. Satan is sure to be specially busy at such a crisis. He casts in the most terrible suggestions—raises all manner of questions—fills the heart with legal reasonings, doubts, and fears—causes the soul to totter on the foundation.

But, thanks and praise to our God, the enemy cannot prevail. "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further." The all-prevailing intercession of our divine Advocate sustains the faith so sorely tried, carries the soul through the deep and dark waters, restores the broken link of communion, heals the spiritual wounds, lifts up the fallen one, brings back the wanderer, and fills the heart with praise and thanksgiving. " I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and when thou art restored, strengthen thy brethren." Here we have set before us in the most touching way the procuring cause of Simon Peter's restoration. We shall now look for a moment at

THE PRODUCING MEANS.

For this, too, we are indebted to the evangelist Luke. Indeed it is through him the inspiring Spirit has given us so much of what is exquisitely human—so much of what goes straight to our very hearts, in subduing power—so much of God coming out in loveliest human form.

We have already noticed Peter's gradual descent—his sad progress, from one stage to another, in moral distance and culpable decline—forgetting to watch and pray—following afar off—warming himself at the enemy's fire—the cowardly denial—the cursing and swearing. All this was down! down! down! shamefully and awfully down. But when the erring, straying, sinning one had reached the very lowest point, then comes out, with heavenly luster, the grace that shines in the procuring cause and the producing means of his restoration. The former we have in Christ's prayer; the latter in Christ's look. " The Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly."

Yes, here it is; " The Lord looked"—"Peter remembered"—" Peter wept—wept bitterly." What a look! What a remembrance! What a weeping! What human heart can conceive, what tongue express, what pen portray, all that is wrapped up in that one look? We can well believe that it went right home to the very center of Peter's soul. He will never forget that marvelous look, so full of mighty moral power—so penetrating—so melting—so soul-subduing.

" Peter went out, and wept bitterly." This was the turning point. Up to this all was darkly downward. Here divine light breaks in upon the deep moral gloom. Christ's most precious prayer is having its answer, His powerful look is doing its work. The fountain of the heart is broken up, and penitential tears flow copiously forth, demonstrating the depth, reality, and intensity of the work within.

Thus it must ever be, and thus it will ever be, when the Spirit of God works in the soul. If we have sinned, we must be made to feel, to judge, and to confess our sin—to feel it deeply, judge it thoroughly, and confess it fully. It will not do merely to say, in levity, flippancy, or mere formality, " I have sinned." There must be reality, uprightness, and sincerity. God desires truth in the inward parts. There was nothing light, flippant, or formal about our beloved apostle in the hour of his fall and repentance. No, all was profoundly and intensely real. It could not but be so with such a procuring cause, and such a producing means. The prayer and look of Peter's Lord displayed their precious results in Peter's restoration.

Now the reader will do well to notice that the prayer and look of our Lord Jesus Christ set forth, in a very striking and beautiful manner, the two grand aspects of Christ's present ministry as our Advocate with the Father. We have the value and prevalency of His intercession, and the power and efficacy of His word in the hands of the Holy Ghost, that " other Advocate." Christ's prayer for Peter answers to His intercession for us. His look upon Peter answers to His word brought home to us in the power of the Holy Ghost. When we sin—as, alas! we do in thought and deed—our blessed and adorable Advocate speaks to God on our behalf. This is the procuring cause of our repentance and restoration. But He speaks to us on God's behalf. This is the producing means.

We shall not dwell upon the great subject of the advocacy here, having recently sought to unfold it in our papers on " The All-sufficiency of Christ." We shall close this paper with a brief reference to two or three of the moral features of Peter's restoration—features which, be it well remembered, must be looked for in every case of true restoration. In the first place there is THE STATE OF THE CONSCIENCE.

Now, as to the full and complete restoration of Peter's conscience after his terrible fall, we have the most unquestionable evidence afforded in his after history. Take the touching scene at the sea of Tiberias, as given in John 21 Look at that dear, earnest, thorough man, girding his fisher's coat around him, and plunging into the sea, in order to get to the feet of his risen Lord! He waits neither for the ship nor for his companions, but in all the lovely freshness and liberty of a divinely restored conscience, he rushes to his Savior's feet. There is no tormenting fear, no legal bondage, no doubt, darkness, or distance. His conscience is perfectly at rest. The prayer and the look—the two grand departments of the work of advocacy—had proved effectual. Peter's conscience was all right, sound, and good; and hence he could find his home in the presence of his Lord—his holy, happy home.

Take another striking and beautiful evidence of a restored conscience. Look at Peter in Acts 3 There he stands in the presence of assembled thousands of Jews, and boldly charges them with having " denied the Holy One and the Just"—the very thing which he himself had done under circumstances far more aggravating. How could Peter do this? How could he have the face to speak so? Why not leave it to James or John to prefer this heavy charge? The answer is blessedly simple. Peter's conscience was so thoroughly restored, so perfectly at rest, because perfectly purged, that he could fearlessly charge the house of Israel with the awful sin of denying the Holy One of God. Was this the fruit of moral insensibility? Nay, it was the fruit of divine restoration. Had any one of the congregation gathered in Solomon's porch undertaken to challenge our apostle as to his own shameful denial of his Lord, we can easily conceive his answer. The man who had " wept bitterly" over his sin would, we feel assured, know how to answer such a challenge. Not that his bitter weeping was the meritorious ground of his restoration; nothing of the kind, it only proved the reality of the work of repentance in his soul. Moral insensibility is one thing, and a restored conscience, resting on the blood and advocacy of Christ, is quite another.

But there is another thing involved in a true work of restoration, and that is

THE STATE OF THE HEART.

This is of the very utmost importance in every instance. No restoration can be considered divinely complete which does not reach the very depths of the heart. And hence, when we turn back to the scenes on the shore of the sea of Tiberias, we find the Lord dealing very closely and very powerfully with the state of Peters heart. We cannot attempt to expatiate, much as we should like to do so, on one of the most affecting interviews in the entire volume of God. We can do little more than quote the inspired record, but that is quite enough.

It is deeply interesting to notice that there is no allusion—not the most remote—to past scenes during that wonderful dinner, provided, cooked, and dispensed by the risen Lord! But " when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?" Here Simon is recalled by the words of his faithful Lord to his self-confident profession. He had said, "Though all shall be offended, yet will not I." Then the searching question, three times repeated, evidently calls back the threefold denial.

Peter's heart is touched—the moral root of the whole matter is reached. This was absolutely necessary in Peter's case, and it is absolutely necessary in every case. The work of restoration can never be thorough unless the roots of things are reached and judged.

Mere surface worn will never do. It is of no use to crop the sprouts; we must get down to the depths, the hidden springs, the moral sources, and judge them in the very light of the divine presence.

This is the true secret of all genuine restoration. Let us ponder it deeply. We may rest assured it demands our most solemn consideration. We are all too apt to rest satisfied with cropping off the sprouts that appear above the surface of our practical daily life, without getting at the roots, and the sad consequence is that the sprouts quickly appear again, to our sorrow and shame, and the dishonor of our Lord's name. The work of self-judgment must be more profound if we would really make progress. We are terribly shallow, light, and flippant. We greatly lack depth, seriousness, and moral gravity. We want more of that heart-work which was wrought in Simon the son of Jonas on the shore of the sea of Tiberias. " Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me?" The knife of the divine Operator had reached the root of the moral disease, and that was enough. It was needful, but it was enough; and the grieved and self-judged Simon Peter has only to fall back upon the great fact that his Lord knew all things. " Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee." It is as though he had said, " Lord, it demands the eye of Omniscience itself to discern in the heart of the poor erring one a single spark of affection for thee."

Reader, this truly is real work. We have before us a thoroughly restored soul—restored in conscience, restored in heart. And if it be asked, " What remains?" the answer is, we see a servant

RESTORED TO HIS WORK.

Some would tell us that if a man falls, lie can never recover his position; and no doubt, under government, we must reap as we sow. But grace is another thing altogether. Government drove Adam out of Eden, and never replaced him, but grace announced the victorious seed of the woman. Government kept Moses out of Canaan, but grace conducted him to Pisgah's top. Government sent a perpetual sword upon David's house, but grace made the son of Bathsheba the wisest and wealthiest of Israel's kings.

This distinction must never be lost sight of. To confound grace and government is to commit a very grave mistake indeed. We cannot attempt to enter upon this weighty subject here, having done so in one of our earlier volumes. But let the reader seek to understand it, and bear it ever in mind.

As to Simon Peter, we not only see him restored to the work to which he was called at the first, but to something even higher. " Feed my lambs—shepherd my sheep"—is the new commission given to the man who had denied his Lord with an oath. Is not this something beyond "catching men?" "When thou art restored, strengthen thy brethren." Can anything in the way of service be more elevating than shepherding sheep, feeding lambs, and strengthening brethren? There is nothing in all this world nearer or dearer to the heart of Christ than His sheep, His lambs, His brethren: and hence He could not have given Simon Peter a more affecting proof of His confidence than by committing to his care the dearest objects of His deep and tender love.

And then mark the closing words, " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me."

What weighty words are these I Who can tell their depth, power, and significance? What a contrast between Simon, "young," restless, forward, blundering, boastful, self-confident; and Peter, " old" subdued, mellowed, passive, crucified! What a difference between a man walking whither he would, and a man following a rejected Lord along the dark and narrow pathway of the cross, home to glory!

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 1

We propose, in dependence upon divine guidance, to write a few papers on the life and ministry of the blessed servant of Christ whose name stands at the head of this paper. We shall trace him through the Gospels, through the Acts, and through the Epistles, for he appears in all the three grand divisions of the New Testament. We shall meditate upon his call; upon his conversion; his confession; his fall; his restoration; in a word, we shall glance at all the scenes and circumstances of his remarkable history, in which we shall find, if we mistake not, many valuable lessons which we may well ponder. May the Lord the Spirit be our Guide and Teacher!

For the earliest notice of Simon Peter, we must turn to the first chapter of the Gospel of John. Here we find, at the very outset, a scene full of interest and instruction. Amongst those who had been gathered by the powerful ministry of John the Baptist there were two men who heard him deliver his glowing testimony to the Lamb of God. We must quote the words: " Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God."

These words fell with peculiar power upon the hearts of two of John's disciples. Not that the words were specially addressed to them; at least, we are not told so. But they were words of life, freshness, and power—words welling up from the depths of a heart that had found an object in the Person of Christ. On the preceding day, John had spoken of the work of Christ. " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." And again, " The same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost."

Thus much as to the work of Christ, on which we shall not now dwell, inasmuch as we have recently dwelt upon that great subject, in the pages of " Things New and Old."

But let the reader note particularly John's testimony to the Person of the Lamb of God. " John stood," riveted, no doubt, by the object which filled the vision of his soul. "And looking upon Jesus, as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God." It was this that went right to the very heart of the two disciples who stood beside him, and so affected them that they left their master to follow this new and infinitely more glorious object that had been presented to their notice.

There is always immense moral power in the testimony that emanates from an absorbed heart. There is nothing formal, official, or mechanical, in such testimony. It is the pure fruit of heart communion; and there is nothing like it. It is not the mere statement of true things about Christ. It is the heart occupied and satisfied with Christ. It is the eye riveted, the heart fixed, the whole moral being centered and absorbed in that one commanding object that fills all heaven with His glory.

This is the kind of testimony we so much want both in our private life and in our public reunions. It is this that tells, with such marvelous power, on others. We never can speak effectively for Christ, unless our hearts are filled with Him. And so it is also, in reference to our meetings. When Christ is the one absorbing object of every heart, there will be a tone and an atmosphere which must tell in some way or other on all who enter the place. There may not be any gift—any teaching or exhortation—not much power in prayer—very little charm in the singing, for persons of musical taste; but oh! there is heart-enjoyment of Christ. His name is as ointment poured forth. Every eye is fixed on Him; every heart is centered in Him; He is the commanding object—the satisfying portion. The unanimous voice of the assembly seems to say, " Behold the Lamb of God," and this must produce its own powerful effect, either in attracting souls to Him, or in convincing them that the people in that assembly have gotten something of which they know nothing at all.

But let us note particularly the effect produced on the two disciples of John. " They heard him speak and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi—which Is to say, being interpreted, Master—where dwellest thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day; for it was about the tenth hour." Thus the blessed testimony of the Baptist led them to follow Jesus, and as they followed on, fresh light was poured upon their path, and they found themselves, at length, in the very abode of that one of whom they had heard their Master speak.

Nor was this all, though it was much—very much indeed—something to satisfy their own hearts' deepest longings. But there was more. There was that delightful going out after others which must, in every instance, be the result of close personal acquaintance and occupation with the Person of Christ. " One of the two which heard John, and followed Jesus, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus."

Here is something which we may well ponder. See how the circle of blessing widens! See the result of a single sentence uttered in truth and reality! It might seem to a carnal observer as though John had lost by his testimony. Far from it. That honored servant found his joy in pointing souls to Jesus. He did not want to link them on to himself, or to gather a party round himself. " John bare witness of him, and cried saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me." And again, " This is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they ask him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us, What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees."—What a fine moral lesson for Pharisees to be set down to!—" And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet? John answered them, saying, I baptize with water; but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not. He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose."

It is not very likely that the man who could give such answers, and bear such a testimony, would be, in the smallest degree, affected by the loss of a few disciples. But, in good truth it was not losing them when they followed Jesus and found their abode with Him. Of this we have the very finest evidence that could be furnished, from John's own lips, in reply to those who evidently thought that their master might possibly feel at being left in the shade. " They came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all come to him." John answered and said, " A man can receive nothing, except it he given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He)mist increase, hut I must decrease." John 3

Noble words! It was the joy of this most illustrious servant—this greatest of woman born, to hide himself behind his Master, and find all his personal springs in Him. As to himself, he was but a voice. As to his work, he was only baptizing with water, he was not worthy to loose the latchet of his Master's shoe.

Such was John. Such the man whose glowing testimony led the brother of Simon Peter to the feet of the Son of God. The testimony was clear and distinct, and the work deep and real in the souls of those who received it.

It does the heart good to note the simple, earnest, forcible words of Simon's brother Andrew. He is able to say, without reserve or hesitation, " We have found the Messias." It was this that led him to look after his brother. He lost no time. Saved and blessed himself, he would, at once, begin to lead his brother into the same blessing.

How simple! How morally lovely! How divinely natural! No sooner had he found the Messias, than he went in search of his brother to tell him of his joy. It must ever be thus. We cannot doubt for a moment, that the true secret of looking after others is the actual finding Christ for ourselves. There is no uncertainty in Andrew's testimony—no wavering—no doubting or fearing. He does not even say, "I hope I have found." No; all is clear and distinct; and, we may say, with all possible assurance, it would not have done Simon Peter much good had it been anything else. An uncertain sound is not of much use to anyone.

It is a grand point to be able to say, " I have found Christ." Reader, can you say it? Doubtless, you have heard of Him. It may be you have heard from the lips of some ardent lover of Jesus, " Behold the Lamb of God." But have you followed that blessed One? If so, you will long to find someone to whom you can speak of your newly found treasure and bring him to Jesus. Begin at home. Get hold of your brother, or your sister, or your companion, your fellow student, your fellow shopman, your fellow workman, your fellow servant, and whisper lovingly, but clearly and decidedly, into his ear, " I have found Jesus. Do come, taste and see how gracious He is. Come—oh! do come to Jesus." Remember this was the way that the great apostle Peter was first called. He first heard of Jesus from the lips of his own brother Andrew. This mighty workman—this great preacher who was blessed, on one occasion, to three thousand souls—who opened the kingdom of heaven to the Jew in Acts 3 and to the Gentile in Acts 10—this blessed servant was brought to Christ by the hand of his own brother in the flesh.

(To be continued, if the Lord will.)

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 6

At the close of John 6 we have a very clear and beautiful confession of Christ from the lips of our apostle—a confession rendered all the more touching and forcible by the circumstances under which it was delivered.

Our blessed Lord, in His teachings in the synagogue at Capernaum, had unfolded truth of a very high order, so high as to put the poor human heart to the test, and wither up all the pretensions of man in a very remarkable manner. We cannot here attempt to enter upon the subject of our Lord's discourse, but the effect of it is thus recorded:—" From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." They were not prepared for the reception of such heavenly doctrine. They were offended by it, and they turned their backs upon that blessed One who alone was worthy of all the affections of the heart, and of the homage and devotion of the whole moral being. " They went back, and walked no more with him."

Now we are not told what became of these deserters, or whether they were saved or not. No such question is raised. We are simply told that they abandoned Christ, and ceased to be any longer publicly identified with His name and His cause. How many, alas! have since followed their sad example! It is one thing to profess to be the disciples of Christ, and another thing altogether to stand with firm purpose of heart on the ground of public testimony for His name, in thorough identification with a rejected Lord. It is one thing for people to flock to Christ because of the benefits which He bestows, and it is quite another to cleave to Him in the face of the world's scorn and contempt. The powerful application of the doctrine of the cross very speedily thins the ranks of professors. In the chapter before us we see at one moment multitudes thronging enthusiastically around the Man who could so marvelously supply their need, and the next moment abandoning Him, when His teaching offended then pride.

Thus it has been, thus it is, and thus it will be until that day in the which the despised Stranger of Nazareth shall reign from pole to pole, and from the river to the ends of the earth. We are ready enough to avail ourselves of the benefits and blessings which a loving Savior can bestow upon us, but when it becomes a question of following a rejected Lord along that rough and lonely path which He has trodden for us in this sinful world, we are disposed, like those of old, to go back, and walk no more with Him.

This is very sad and very humiliating. It proves how little we know of his heart, or of what that heart desires from us. Jesus longs for fellowship. He does not want patronage. It does not meet the desire of his heart to be followed, or admired, or gazed at, because of what He can do or give. He delights in a heart taught of God to appreciate His Person, for this glorifies and gratifies the Father. He retired from the gaze of an excited and tumultuous throng who would fain make Him a king, because they had eaten of the loaves and were filled; but He could turn, with touching earnestness, to the little band of followers who still remained, and challenge their hearts with the question, " Will ye also go away?"

How deeply affecting! How it must have touched the hearts of all, save that one who had no heart for aught but money—who was " a thief" and " a devil! "Alas! alas! a moment was approaching when all were to forsake Him and fly—when even the very man whose history we are considering was to deny Him with cursing and swearing—when the blessed One was to be left absolutely alone, forsaken of men, forsaken of God—utterly and awfully deserted.

But that moment was yet future; and it is peculiarly refreshing to hearken to the fine confession of our beloved apostle, in reply to the deeply affecting inquiry of his Lord. " Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God."

Well indeed might he say, " To whom shall we go?" There was not another throughout the wide universe of God to whom the heart could turn. He alone could meet their every need, satisfy their every right desire, fill up every chamber of the heart. Simon Peter felt this, and hence, with all his mistakes, his failures, and his infirmities, his loving and devoted heart turned with earnest affection to his beloved Lord. He would not abandon Him, though little able to rise to the height of His heavenly teaching. There was a link binding him to Jesus Christ which nothing could snap. " Lord, to whom shall we go?"—whither shall we betake ourselves?—on whom could we reckon beside? True, there may be trial and difficulty in the path of true discipleship. It may prove a rough and a lonely path. The heart may be tried and tested in every possible way. There may be deep and varied sorrow—deep waters, dark shadows; but in the face of all we can say, " To whom shall we go?"

And mark the singular fullness of Peter's confession. "Thou hast the words of eternal life;" and, then, " Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." We have the two things, namely, what He has, and what He is. Blessed be His name, Christ has all we can possibly want for time and eternity. Words of eternal life flow from His lips into our hearts. He causes those who follow Him to " inherit substance." He bestows upon them " durable riches and righteousness."

We may truly say that, in comparison of what Christ has to give, all the riches, honors, dignities, and pleasures of this world are but as dross. They all pass away as the vapors of the morning, and leave only an aching void behind. Nothing that this world has to offer can possibly satisfy the cravings of the human soul. " All is vanity and vexation of spirit.' And not only so—-it must be given up. If one had all the wealth of Solomon, it lasts but a moment in comparison with that boundless eternity which lies before every one of us. When death approaches, all the riches of the universe could not purchase one moment's respite. The last great enemy gives no quarter. He ruthlessly snaps the link that connects man with all that his poor heart prizes and loves upon earth, and hurries him away into eternity.

And what then? Yes, this is the question. Who can answer it? Who can attempt to picture the future of a soul that passes into eternity without God, without Christ, without hope? Who can describe the horrors of one who, all in a moment, opens his eyes to the fact—the tremendous fact—that he is lost, lost forever—hopelessly, eternally, lost? It is positively too dreadful to dwell upon it. And yet it must be looked at; and if the reader is still of the world, still unconverted, careless, thoughtless, unbelieving, we would earnestly entreat of him now, just now, to give his earnest attention to the weighty and all-important question of his soul's salvation—a question, in comparison with which all other questions dwindle into utter insignificance. " What shall it profit a man, if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" It is, beyond all question, the most egregious folly that anyone can be guilty of to put off the grand business of his soul's salvation.

And if any one inquire what he has to do in this business, the answer is Nothing—" nothing, either great or small." Jesus has the words of eternal life. He it is who says, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life."

Here is the hinge on which the whole matter moves. Hearken to the words of Christ. Believe in Him that sent that blessed One. Put your trust in God, and you shall be saved; you shall have eternal life, and never come into judgment.

Nor is this all. Simon Peter, in his lovely confession, does not confine himself to what Christ has to give, precious and blessed as that is, but he also speaks of what He is. " Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." This is full of deepest interest for the heart. Christ not only gives us eternal life, but He also becomes the object of our heart's affections—our satisfying portion, our unfailing resource, our infallible guide and counselor, our constant reference, in all our need, in all our pressure, in all our sorrows and difficulties. We need never go to any one else for succor, sympathy, or guidance. We have all we want in Him. He is the eternal delight of the heart of God, and He may well be the delight of our hearts here and hereafter, now and forever.

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 7

The close of Matt. 14 presents a scene in the life of our apostle on which we may dwell with profit for a few moments. It furnishes a very fine illustration of his own touching inquiry, " Lord, to whom shall we go?"

Our Lord, having fed the multitude, and sent His disciples across the sea, retired into a mountain, to be alone in prayer. In this we have a striking foreshadowing of the present time. Jesus has gone on high. Israel is for the present set aside, but not forgotten. Days of trouble will come—rough seas and stormy skies will fall to the lot of the remnant; but their Messiah will return, and deliver them out of all their troubles. He will bring them to their desired haven, and all will be peace and joy for the Israel of God.

All this is fully unfolded on the page of prophecy, and is of the deepest interest to every lover of God and His word; but for the present we can merely dwell upon the inspired record concerning Simon Peter, and seek to learn the lesson which that record so forcibly teaches. " And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray; and when the evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves, for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him, and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?"

This brief passage presents to our view in a very forcible way some of the leading features of Simon Peter's character. His zeal, his energy, his real devotedness of heart, no one can for a moment call in question; but these very qualities—most charming as they surely are—led him not infrequently into a position of such prominence as to render his weak points all the more conspicuous. A man of less zeal, less energy, would have remained on board the ship, and thus avoided Peter's failure and breakdown. Perhaps, too, men of cooler temperament would condemn as unwarrantable rashness Peter's act in leaving the ship, or pronounce it a piece of forwardness which justly deserved a humiliating rebuff.

All this may be so; but we are free to confess the zeal, energy, and devotedness of this beloved servant of Christ, have far more powerful charms for the heart than the cool, calculating, self-considering spirit, which in order to avoid the shame and humiliation of a defeat, refuses to take a bold and decided step for Christ. True it is that Peter, in the interesting scene now before us, completely broke down; but why did he? Was it because he left the ship? No; but because he ceased to look in simple faith to Jesus. Here lay the root of his failure. Had he only kept his eye on the Master, he could have walked on the water, though ever so rough. Faith can walk on rough water as easily as on smooth. Nature cannot walk on either. It is not a question of the state of the water, but the state of the heart. Circumstances have nothing to do with faith, except, indeed, that, when difficult and trying, they develop its power and brightness. There was no reason whatever, in the judgment of faith, why Peter should have failed in his walk on the water. Faith looks not at the things that are seen and temporal, but at the things which are unseen and eternal. It endures as seeing Him who is invisible. "Faith is the evidence of things not seen." It lifts the heart above the winds and waves of this rough world, and keeps it in perfect peace, to the praise of Him who is the Giver of faith, as of " every good and perfect gift."

But our beloved apostle utterly failed in faith on the occasion now before us. He, as we, alas! so often do, took his eye off the Lord, and fixed it on his surroundings, and, as a consequence, he immediately began to sink. It must ever be so. We cannot get on for a single moment, save as we have the living God as a covering for our eyes. The grand motto for the life of faith is "Looking off unto Jesus." It is this alone which enables us to " run the race set before us,,י be the way rough or smooth. When Peter came down out of the ship, it was either Christ or drowning. He might well say at such a moment, " Lord, to whom shall I go?" Whither could he turn? When on board the ship, he had its timbers between him and death, but when on the water he had nothing but Jesus.

And was not He enough? Yes, verily, if only Peter could have trusted Him. This is the point. All things are possible to him that believeth. Storms are hushed into a perfect calm, rough seas become like glass, lofty mountains are leveled, when faith brings the power of God to bear. The greater the difficulties, the brighter the triumphs of faith. It is in the furnace that the real preciousness of faith is displayed. Faith has to do with God, and not with men or things. If we cease to lean on God, we have nothing but a wild, watery waste—a perfect chaos—around us, where nature's resources must hopelessly fail.

All this was proved by Simon Peter when he came down out of the ship to walk on the water; and every child of God, and every servant of Christ, must prove it in his measure, for Peter's history is full of great practical lessons for us all. If we want to walk above the circumstances of the scene through which we are passing—if we would rise superior to its influences—if we would be able to give an answer, clear, distinct, and decided, to the skepticism, the rationalism, and the infidelity of the day in which we live, then, assuredly, we must keep the eye of faith firmly fixed on " the Author and Perfecter of faith." It is not by logical skill or intellectual power we shall ever meet the arguments of the infidel, but by a profound and abiding sense, a living and soul-satisfying apprehension, of the all-sufficiency of Christ—Himself—His work—His word—to meet our every need, our every exigence.

But it may be the reader feels disposed to condemn Peter for leaving the ship. He may think there was no need for his taking such a step. "Why not abide with his brethren on board the vessel? Was it not possible to be quite as devoted to Christ in the ship as on the water? And, further, did not the sequel prove that it would have been far better, and safer, and wiser, for Peter to remain where he was, than to venture forth on a course which he was not able to pursue?

To all this we reply that our apostle was evidently governed by an earnest desire to be nearer to his Lord. And this was right. He saw Jesus walking on the water, and he longed to be with Him. And, further, he had the direct authority of his Lord for leaving the ship. We fully and freely grant that, without this, it would have been a fatal mistake to leave his position; but the moment that word, " Come," fell on his ear, he had a divine warrant for venturing forth upon the water—yea, to have remained would have been disobedience.

/bus it is in every case. We must have authority before we can act in anything. Without this, the greater our zeal, energy, and apparent devotedness, the more fatal will be our mistake, and the more mischief we shall do to ourselves, to others, and to the cause of Christ. It is of the very last possible importance in every case, but especially where there is a measure of zeal, earnestness, and energy, that there should be profound subjection to the authority of the word. If there be not this, there is no calculating the amount of mischief which may be done. If our devotedness flow not in the channel of simple obedience, if it rush over the embankments formed by the word of God, the consequences must be most disastrous.

But there is another thing which stands next in importance to the authority of the divine word, and that is the abiding realization of the divine presence. These two things must never be separated, if we want to walk on the water. We may be quite clear and settled in our own minds, having distinct authority for any given line of action; but if we have not, with equal distinctness, the sense of the Lord's presence with us—if our eyes are not continually on the living God, we shall most assuredly break down.

This is very serious, and demands the gravest consideration of the christian reader. It was precisely here that Peter failed. He did not fail in obedience, but in realized dependence. He acted on the word of Jesus in leaving the ship, but he failed to lean on the arm of Jesus in walking on the water. Hence his terror and confusion. Mere authority is not enough, we want power. To act without authority is wrong. To act without power is impossible. The authority for starting is the word. The power to proceed is the divine presence. The combination of the two must ever yield a successful career. It matters not, in the smallest degree, what the difficulties are, if we have the stable authority of holy scripture for our course, and the blessed support of the presence of God in pursuing it. When God speaks, we must obey; but in order to do so, we must lean on His arm. " Have not I commanded you?" " Lo, I am with you."

Here are the two things so absolutely essential to every child of God and every servant of Christ. Without these we can do nothing; with them we can do all things. If we have not a " Thus saith the Lord," or " It is written," we cannot enter upon a path of devotedness; and if we have not His realized presence, we cannot pursue it. It is quite possible to be right in setting out, and yet to fail in going on.

It was so in the case of Simon Peter, and it has been so in the case of thousands since. It is one thing to make a good start, and another thing to make good progress. It is one thing to leave the ship, and another thing to walk on the water. Peter did the former, but he failed in the latter. This beloved servant broke down in his course; but where did he find himself? In the arms of a loving Savior. " Lord, save me!" How touching! How deeply affecting! He casts himself upon a well-known love—a love which was yet to meet him in far more humiliating circumstances. Nor was he disappointed. Ah! no; blessed be God, no poor failing creature can ever appeal to that love in vain. " And immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand, and caught him, and said unto him, Ο thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" Exquisite grace! If Peter failed to reach his Lord, his Lord did not fail to reach him. If Peter failed in faith, Jesus could not fail in grace. Impossible. The grace of our Lord Jesus is exceeding abundant. He takes occasion from our very failures to display His rich and precious love. Oh, how blessed to have to do with such a tender, patient, loving Lord! Who would not trust Him, and praise Him, love Him, and serve Him?

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 10

We could not close this series of papers without glancing, however cursorily, at the way in which our apostle discharged his various commissions. We see him " catching men;" opening the kingdom of heaven to the Jew and to the Gentile; and, finally, feeding and shepherding the lambs and sheep of the flock of Christ.

Elevated services these, for any poor mortal to be called to, and more especially for one who had fallen so deeply as Simon Peter. But the remarkable power with which he was enabled to fulfill his blessed service, proved beyond all question, the reality and completeness of his restoration. If, at the close of the gospels, we see Peter, restored in heart and conscience; in the Acts and in his epistles, we see him restored to his work.

We cannot attempt to go into details; but a point or two must be briefly noticed. There is something uncommonly fine in Peter's address in the third chapter of Acts. We can only quote a sentence or two. "The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son, Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just."

What a splendid evidence we have here of Peter's complete restoration! It would have been utterly impossible for him to charge his audience with having denied the Holy One, if his own soul had not been fully and blessedly restored. Alas! he, too, had denied his Lord; but he had repented, and wept bitterly. He had been down in the depths of self-judgment, just where he desired to see every one of his hearers. He had been face to face with his Lord—just where he longed to see them. He had been given to taste the sweetness, the freeness, the fullness of the pardoning love of God, to prove the divine efficacy of the atonement and the prevalency of the advocacy of Christ. He was pardoned, healed, restored; and as such he stood in their presence, a living and striking monument of that grace which he was unfolding to them, and which was amply sufficient for them as it had proved for him. " Repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out."

Who could more distinctly and emphatically Utter such precious words than the erring, restored and forgiven Peter? If any one of his audience had ventured to remind the preacher of his own history, what would he have said in reply? Doubtless, he would have had little to say about himself; but much—very much to say about that rich and precious grace which had triumphed over all his sin and failure—much—very much about that precious blood which had canceled forever all his guilt, and given perfect peace to his conscience—much, very much about that all-prevailing advocacy to which he owed his full and perfect restoration.

Peter was just the man to unfold to others those glorious themes in which he had so thoroughly learned to find his strength, his comfort and his joy. He had proved, in no ordinary way, the reality and stability of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was no mere empty theory; no mere doctrine or opinion with him.

It was all intensely real to him. His very life and salvation were bound up in it. He knew the heart of Christ, in a very intimate way. He knew its infinite tenderness and compassion—its unswerving devotedness, in the face of many stumbles, shortcomings, and sins; and hence, he could bear the most distinct and powerful testimony to the whole house of Israel, to the power of the name of Jesus, the efficacy of His blood, and the deep and infinite love of His heart. " His name, through faith in his name, hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know; yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all."

What power in these words! How refreshing is the testimony to the peerless Name of Jesus! It is perfectly delightful at all times; but specially so in this infidel day in which our lot is cast—a day so marked by the determined and persistent effort of the enemy to exclude the Name of Jesus from every department.

Look where you will, whether it be in the domain of science, of religion, of philanthropy, or moral reform, and you see the same sedulous and diligently pursued purpose to banish the name of Jesus. It is not said so in plain terms, but it is so, nevertheless. Scientific men—the professors and lecturers in our universities talk and write about " the forces of nature" and the facts of science in such a way as practically to exclude the Christ of God from the whole field of nature. Scripture tells us, blessed be God! that by the Son of His love, " All things were created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist." And again, speaking of the Son, the inspiring Spirit says, "Who being the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high." Col. 1, Heb. 1

These splendid passages lead us to the divine root of the matter. They speak not of " the forces of nature" but of the glory of Christ—the power of His hand—the virtue of His word. Infidelity would rob us of Christ, and give us instead, " the forces of nature." We vastly prefer our own beloved Lord. We delight to see His Name bound up, indissolubly, with creation in all its vast and marvelous fields. We vastly prefer the eternal record of the Holy Ghost to all the finely-spun theories of infidel professors. We rejoice to see the Name of Jesus bound up in every department of religion and philanthropy. We shrink, with ever increasing horror, from every system, every club, every order, every association that dares to shut out the glorious Name of Jesus from its schemes of religion and moral reform. We do solemnly declare that the religion, the philanthropy, the moral reform which does not make the Name of Jesus its Alpha and its Omega, is the religion, the philanthropy and the moral reform of hell. This may seem strong, severe, ultra and narrow minded; but it is our deep and thorough conviction, and we utter it fearlessly, in the presence of all the infidelity and superstition of the day.

But we must return to our apostle's discourse which has wakened up those glowing sentiments in the very depths of the soul.

Having charged home their terrible sin upon the consciences of his hearers, he proceeds to apply the healing, soothing balm of the gospel, in words of marvelous power and sweetness. "And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled." Nothing can exceed the grace of this. It recalls the words of Joseph to his troubled brethren. "It was not you that sent me hither, but God." Such is the exquisite grace of our Lord Jesus Christ—such the infinite love and goodness of our God.

" Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the time of refreshing shall come from [or by] the presence of the Lord. And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you; whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things, whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people. Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first, God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities."

Thus did this dear and honored apostle, in the power of the Holy Ghost, throw wide open the kingdom of heaven to the Jews, in pursuance of his high commission as recorded in the sixteenth chapter of the gospel of Matthew. It is what we may well call a splendid testimony from first to last. Most gladly would we linger over it; but our limited space forbids. We can only commend it to the earnest study of the reader, and pass on, for a few moments, to the tenth chapter of Acts which records the opening of the kingdom to the Gentile.

We assume that the reader understands the truth in reference to the keys of the kingdom of heaven being committed to Peter. We shall not therefore occupy his time or our own In combating the ignorant superstition which attributes to our apostle what we may rest assured he would have rejected with intense and holy horror, namely, the power to let souls into heaven. Detestable folly! which, while it obstinately refuses Christ, who is God's only way to heaven, will blindly build up on some poor sinful mortal like ourselves who himself was a debtor to the sovereign grace of God and the precious blood of Christ for his entrance into the church on earth and into heaven above.

But enough of this. All intelligent Christians understand that the apostle Peter was commissioned, by his Lord and ours, to open the kingdom of heaven to both Jew and Gentile. To him were committed the keys—not of the church, nor yet of heaven; but of " the kingdom of heaven;" and we find him, as it were, using one of those keys in Acts 3, and the other in Acts 10

But he was by no means so alert in taking up the latter as he was in taking up the former. Prejudice—that sad hindrance, then, now, and always—stood in the way. He needed to have his mind enlarged to take in the divine purpose in respect to the Gentiles. To one trained amid the influences of the Jewish system, it seemed one thing to admit Jews into the kingdom, and quite another to admit Gentiles. Our apostle had to get further instruction in the school of Christ ere his mind could take in the " no difference" doctrine. " Ye know," he says to Cornelius, " how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of another nation." Thus it had been in days gone by; but now all was changed. The middle wall was broken down—the barriers were swept away; " God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean." He had seen, in a vessel which came from heaven, and returned thither, " all manner of four-footed beasts," and a voice from heaven had commanded him to slay and eat. This was something new to Simon Peter. It was a wonderful lesson he was called to learn on the housetop of Simon the tanner. He was there, for the first time, taught that é' God is no respecter of persons," and that what God hath cleansed, no man may call common.

All this was good and healthful for the soul of our apostle. It was well to have his heart enlarged to take in the precious thoughts of God—to see the old barriers swept away before the magnificent tide of grace flowing from the heart of God over a lost world—to learn that the question of " clean" or " unclean" was no longer to be decided by an examination of hoofs and habits (Lev. 11)—that the same precious blood of Christ which could cleanse a Jew could cleanse a Gentile also, and moreover, that the former needed it, just as much as the latter.

This, we repeat, was most valuable instruction for the heart and understanding of Simon Peter: and if the reader wants to know how far he took it in and appreciated it, he has but to turn to Acts 15 and read the apostle's own commentary upon the matter. The church had reached a solemn crisis. Judaizing teachers had begun their terrible work. They would fain bring the Gentile converts under the law. The occasion was intensely interesting and deeply important, yea, solemnly momentous. The very foundations were at stake. If the enemy could but succeed in bringing the Gentile believers under the law, all was gone.

But, all praise to our ever gracious God, He did not abandon His church to the power or wiles of the adversary. When the enemy came in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord raised up a standard against him. A great meeting was convened—not in some obscure corner; but at Jerusalem, the very center and source of all the religious influence of the moment—the very place, too, from whence the evil had emanated. God took care that the great question should not be decided at Antioch by Paul and Barnabas, but at Jerusalem itself, by the unanimous voice of the apostles, elders, and the whole church, governed, guided and taught by God the Holy Ghost.

At this great meeting our apostle delivered himself in a style that stirs the very deepest springs of our spiritual life. Hear his words, "And when there had been much disputing—" Alas! how soon the miserable disputing began. " Peter rose up and said unto them, Men, brethren, ye know how that a good while ago, God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us. And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers, nor we were able to bear? But we believe that by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as they"

This is uncommonly fine. Indeed it is morally grand. He does not say, " They shall be saved even as we." No; but " We shall be saved even as they"—on the same ground, after the same model, in the same way. The Jew comes down from his lofty dispensational position, only too thankful to be saved, just like the poor Gentile, by the precious grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

How those words of the apostle of the circumcision must have refreshed and delighted the heart of Paul as he sat at the marvelous and never to be forgotten meeting! Not that he sought in any way, the countenance, the support, or authority of man. He had received his gospel and his commission, not from Peter but from Peter's Lord; and from Him, too, not as the Messiah on earth, but as the risen and glorified Son of God in heaven. Still, we cannot doubt that the testimony of his beloved fellow-laborer was profoundly interesting and cordially welcome to the apostle of the Gentiles. We can only say Alas! alas! that there should have been aught in the after course of that fellow-laborer, in the smallest degree inconsistent with his splendid testimony at the conference. Alas I that Peter's conduct at Antioch should vary so much from his words at Jerusalem. See Gal. 2

But such is man, even the best of men, if left to himself. And the higher the man is, the more mischief he is sure to do if he makes a stumble. We shall not however dwell on the sad and painful scene at Antioch, between those two most illustrious servants. They are both now in heaven, in the presence of their beloved Lord, where the remembrance of past failure and sin only enhances the value of that blood which cleanseth from all sin, and of that grace which reigns through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. The Holy Ghost has thought proper to record the fact that our apostle failed in frankness and integrity at Antioch; and further, that the blessed apostle of the Gentiles had to withstand him to the face; but we are not going to expatiate upon it. We would profit by it, as well we may, for it is full of deep instruction and solemn warning. If such an one as the apostle Peter, after all his experience, his fall and restoration, his long course of service, his intimate acquaintance with the heart of Christ, all the instruction he had received, all his gifts and knowledge, all his powerful preaching and teaching—if such an one as this could, after all, dissemble through fear of man, or to hold a place in man's esteem, what shall we say for ourselves? Simply this:

" Ο Lamb of God, still keep me close to Thy pierced side;

'Tis only there in safety and peace I can abide.

When foes and snares surround me, when lusts and fears within:

The grace that sought and found me alone can keep me clean.

May the Lord greatly bless to our souls our meditation on the history of Simon Peter! May his life and its lessons be used of the Holy Ghost to deepen in our souls the sense of our own utter weakness, and of the matchless grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 3

We closed our last paper with these suggestive words, " They forsook all, and followed him"—words expressive, at once, of thorough separation from the things of time and of nature, and of whole-hearted consecration to Christ and His interests.

Both these we see in Simon Peter. There was a deep and blessed work wrought in his soul, by the lake of Gennesaret. He was given to see himself, in the light of the divine presence, where alone self can be really seen and judged. We have no reason to suppose that, viewed from a human stand-point, Simon was worse than his neighbors. On the contrary, it is more than probable, that so far as his outward life was concerned, it was more blameless than that of many around him. He was not, like the great apostle of the Gentiles, arrested at the very height of a mad career of rebellion against Christ and His cause. He is introduced to us, by the inspired historian, in the pursuit of his quiet and honest calling as a fisherman.

But then scripture expressly informs us that, " There is no difference, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Rom. 3) And it repeats this statement, in chapter x. of the same Epistle, basing it upon another footing, " There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him."

Reader, see that you really understand this most important doctrine. It is not that there are not broad lines of distinction, in a moral and social point of view, between men. There, most assuredly, are such. There is, for example, a vast difference between the wretched drunkard who comes home, or is carried home, night after night, worse than a beast, to his poor brokenhearted wife and squalid, starving children, and a sober, industrious man, who realizes his responsibility as a husband and a father, and seeks to fulfill the duties attaching to such relationships.

Now, we judge it would be a very great mistake indeed to ignore such a distinction as this. We believe that God, in His moral government of the world, recognizes it. Contrast, for a moment, the drunkard's home with that of the sober man. Yea, contrast their whole career, their social position, their course and character. Who can fail to recognize the amazing difference between the two? There is a certain way of presenting what is called, " The no-difference doctrine" which, to say the least of it, is far from judicious. It does not allow the margin which, as we believe, scripture suggests, wherein to insert great social and moral distinctions between men and men—distinctions which only blindness itself can refuse to see. If we look at the present government of God, we cannot but see that there is a very serious difference indeed between one man and another. Men reap as they sow. The drunken spendthrift reaps as he sows; and the sober, industrious, honest man reaps as he sows. The enactments of God's moral government are such as to render it impossible for men to escape, even in this life, the consequences of their ways.

Nor is this all. Not only does God's present government take cognizance of the conduct of men, causing them to reap, even here, the due reward of their deeds; but when scripture opens to our view, as it does, in manifold places, the awful judgment to come, it speaks of " books being opened." It tells us that men " shall be judged every man according to their works" In short, we have close and accurate discrimination, and not a promiscuous huddling of men and things.

And further, be it remembered, that the word of God speaks of degrees of punishment. It speaks of " few stripes" and '' many stripes." It uses such words as " more tolerable" for one than another.

What mean such words, if there be not varied grounds of judgment, varied characters of responsibility, varied measures of guilt, varied degrees of punishment? Men may reason; but “the Judge of all the earth will do right.” It is of no possible use for people to argue and discuss. Every man will be judged and punished according to his deeds. This is the teaching of holy scripture; and it would be much better and safer and wiser for men to submit to it than to reason against it, for they may rest fully assured of it that the judgment-seat of Christ will make very short work of their reasonings. Impenitent sinners will be judged and punished according to their works: and, although men may affect to believe that it is inconsistent with the idea of a God of love that any of His creatures should be condemned to endure eternal punishment in hell, still sin must be punished; and those who reason against its punishment have only a one-sided view of God's nature and character. They have invented a God of their own who will connive at sin. But it will not do. The God of the Bible, the God whom we see at the cross, the God of Christianity will, beyond all question, execute judgment upon all who reject His Son; that judgment will be according to every man's works; and the result of that judgment will, inevitably, be " The lake that burneth with fire and brimstone," forever and forever.

We deem it of the utmost importance to press on all whom it may concern the line of truth on which we have been dwelling. It leaves wholly untouched the real truth of the no-difference doctrine; but, at the same time, it qualifies and adjusts the mode of presenting that truth. It is always well to avoid an ultra one-sided way of stating things. It damages truth and stumbles souls. It perplexes the anxious, and gives a plea to the caviler. The full truth of God should always be unfolded, and thus all will be right. Truth puts men and things in their right places, and maintains a holy moral balance which is absolutely priceless.

Is it then asserted that there is a difference? Not as regards the question of righteousness before God. On this ground, there is not a shadow of difference, for "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Looked at in the light of that glory, all human distinctions vanish. All are lost, guilty and condemned. From the very lowest strata of society—its deepest dregs, up to the loftiest heights of moral refinement, men are seen, in the light of the divine glory, to be utterly and hopelessly lost. They all stand on one common ground, are all involved in one common ruin. And not only so, but those who plume themselves on their morality. refinement, orthodoxy, and religiousness, are further from the kingdom of God than the vilest of the sons and daughters of men, as our Lord said to the chief priests and elders, " Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." Matt. 21

This is very humbling to human pride and pretension. It is a doctrine to which none will ever submit until they see themselves as Simon Peter saw himself in the immediate presence of God. All who have ever been there will fully understand those glowing words, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord." These were accents flowing forth from the depths of a truly penitent and contrite soul. There is what we may venture to call a lovely inconsistency in them. Simon had no such thought as that Jesus would depart from him. He had, we may feel assured, an instinctive sense that that blessed One who had spoken such words to him, and shown such grace, could not turn away from a poor broken-hearted sinner. And he judged rightly. Jesus had not come down from heaven to turn His back upon any one who needed Him. " He came to seek and to save that which is lost.' " This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." "Him that cometh unto me, I will, in no wise, cast out." A Savior-God had come down into this world not, surely, to turn away from a lost sinner, but to save him and bless him, and make him a blessing. " Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men."

Such was the grace that shone upon the soul of Simon Peter. It removed his guilt, hushed his fears, and filled him with joy and peace in believing. Thus it is in every case. Divine pardon follows human confession—follows it with marvelous rapidity. " I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." God delights to pardon. It is the joy of His loving heart to cancel our guilt, and fill our souls with His own blessed peace, and to make us the messengers of His grace to others.

Not that we are called in the same way, or to the same work, as our apostle; but surely we are called to fellow the Lord, and cleave to Him, with purpose of heart. This is the blessed privilege and sacred duty of every saved soul on the face of the earth, we are imperatively called upon to break with the world, and follow Christ.

It is not a question of abandoning our proper calling in life, as in Simon's case. Few indeed and far between are the cases in which such a course of action is fitting. Many, alas! have assayed to do this, and have entirely broken down, simply because they were not called of God to it, or sustained of God in it. We are convinced that, as a rule, it is better for every man to work with his hands or his brains at some bread-winning calling, and preach and teach as well, if gifted to do so. There are exceptions, no doubt, to the rule. There are some who are so manifestly called, fitted, used, and sustained of God, that there can be no possible mistake as to their course. Their hands are so full of work, their every moment so engrossed with ministry in speaking or writing, teaching publicly and from house to house, that it would be a simple impossibility for them to take up what is termed a secular calling—though we like not the phrase. All such have to go on with God, looking only to Him, and He will infallibly maintain them unto the end.

Still, admitting, as we are bound to do fully, the exceptions to the rule, we are, nevertheless, convinced, that, as a rule, it is better, in every way, for men to be able to preach and teach without being chargeable to any. It gives moral weight, and it furnishes a fine testimony against the wretched hirelingism of Christendom so demoralizing to souls and so damaging, in every way, to the cause of Christ.

But, christian reader, we have to distinguish between abandoning our lawful calling and breaking with the world. The former may be quite wrong; the latter is our bounden duty. We are called to rise up, in the spirit of the mind, and in the firm purpose of the heart, out of all merely worldly influences, to break every worldly link, and lay aside every weight, in order to follow our blessed Lord and Master. We are to be, absolutely and completely, for Him in this world, as He is for us in the presence of God. When this is really the case with us, it matters not whether we are sweeping a crossing or evangelizing a continent. All is done to Him. This is the one grand point. If Christ has His due place in our hearts, all will be right. If he has not, nothing will be right. If there is any under current in the soul, any secondary object, any worldly motive, any selfish aim or end, there can be no progress. We must make Christ and His cause our absorbing object.

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 4

The mere deeply we ponder the history of professing Christians, whether as furnished by the pen of inspiration, or as coming within the range of personal observation, the more fully we must see the vast importance of a complete break with the world, at the outset. If there be not this, it is vain to look for inward peace, or outward progress. There may be a measure of clearness as to the doctrines of grace, the plan of salvation, as it is called, justification by faith and the like. But unless there is the thorough judgment of self, and the complete surrender of this present evil world, peace and progress must be out of the question. How can there be peace where self, in some one or other of its thousand shapes, is fostered? And how can there be progress where the heart is hankering after the world, halting between two opinions, and vacillating between Christ and present things? Impossible. As well might a racer expect to get on in the race while still lingering about the starting post, and encumbering himself with heavy weights.

Does the reader deem all this legal? Let him rest assured that nothing is further from every trace of legality than making a proper start on the christian course. Indeed we may set it down as a fixed principle that legality, and self, and the world invariably go together; and what we are contending for is the complete surrender of all these things in order to our running, with success, the race set before us.

Is it then, that peace is to be found by denying self and giving up the world? Most certainly not But neither can peace ever be found while self is indulged and the world retained. True peace is found only in Christ—peace of conscience in His finished work—peace of heart in His blessed person. All this is clear enough. But how comes it to pass that hundreds of people who know, or profess to know, these things have no settled peace, and never seem to take a single step in advance? You meet them, week after week, month after month, year after year, and there they are in the same position, in the same state, and with the same old story, chronic cases of self-occupation, stereotyped world-borderers, "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." They seem to delight in hearing the gospel clearly preached, and truth fully unfolded. In fact, they cannot endure anything else. But, for all that, they are never clear, bright or happy. How can they be? They are halting between two opinions; they have never broken with the world; they have never surrendered a whole heart to Christ.

Here, we are persuaded, lies the real secret of the whole matter as regards that class of persons now before us. "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." A man who tries to keep one eye on the world, and the other on Christ, will be found to have no eye for Christ, but both eyes for the world. It must be so: Christ must be all or nothing; and hence it is the very height of absurdity to talk of peace or progress, where Christ is not the absorbing object of the soul. Where He is, there will never be any lack of settled peace; and there will be progress. The Holy Ghost is jealous of the glory of Christ, and He can never minister comfort, consolation, or strength to a heart divided between Him and the world. It could not be. He is grieved by such unfaithfulness; and instead of being the minister of comfort, He must be the stern reprover of indulged selfishness, worldliness? and vacillation.

Let us look at the case of our apostle. How refreshing it is to contemplate his thorough-going style! His starting was of the right sort. " He forsook all and followed Christ." There was no halting here, at all events; no vacillating between Christ and present things. Boats, nets, fish, natural ties, all are unhesitatingly and unreservedly surrendered, not as a matter of cold duty or legal service, but as the grand and necessary result of having seen the glory and heard the voice of the Son of God.

Thus it was with Simon Peter, at the opening of his remarkable career. All was clear and unequivocal, whole-hearted and decided, so far as the starting was concerned; and we must bear this in mind, as we pursue his after history. No doubt, we shall find mistakes and stumblings, failure, ignorance, and sin; but, underneath, and in spite of all this, we shall find a heart true to Jesus—a heart divinely taught to appreciate the Christ of God.

This is a grand point. Blunders may well be borne with, when the heart beats true to Christ. Someone has remarked that, " The blunderers do all the work." If this be so, the reason is that those blunderers have real affection for their Lord; and that is precisely what we all want. A man may make a great many mistakes, but if he can say when challenged by his Lord, "Thou knowest that I love thee," he is sure to come right in the end; and not only so, but, even in the very midst of his mistakes, our hearts are much more drawn to him than to the cold, correct, sleek professor, who thinks of himself, and seeks to make the best of both worlds.

Simon Peter was a true lover of Christ. He had a divinely given sense of His preciousness, of the glory of His Person, and the heavenly character of His mission. All this comes out, with uncommon force and freshness, in his varied confessions of Christ, even before the day of Pentecost. We shall glance at one or two of these, not with any view to chronological order, but simply to illustrate and prove the lovely devotedness of this true-hearted servant of Christ.

Let us turn to Matt. 16 " When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" Weighty question! Upon the answer to this question hangs the whole moral condition and future destiny of every human being under the sun. All really depends upon the heart's estimate of Christ. This it is, which like a great moral indicator, reveals a man's true state, character, bent and object, in all things. It is not merely a question of his outward life, or of his profession of faith. The former may be blameless, and the latter orthodox; but, if underneath all this blameless morality and orthodox profession, there be not one true pulsation of the heart for Christ, no divinely wrought sense of what, and who, and whence He is, then verily all the morality and the orthodoxy are but the trappings with which a guilty, hell-deserving sinner adorns himself in the eyes of his fellows, or with which he deceives himself as to the awful eternity which lies before him. " What think ye of Christ?יי is the all-deciding question; for God the Holy Ghost has emphatically declared that, " If any man"—no matter who or what he be—" love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha." 1 Cor. 16:22.

How awful is this! And how remarkable to find it at the close of such an epistle as the first to the Corinthians! How forcibly it declares to all who will only bend their ears to listen, that love to Christ is the basis of all sound doctrine, the motive spring of all true morality! If that blessed One be not enthroned at the very center of the heart's affections, an orthodox creed is an empty delusion; and an unblemished reputation is but dust cast in a man's eyes to prevent him seeing his true condition in the sight of God. The Christians at Corinth had fallen into many doctrinal errors and moral evils, all needing rebuke and correction; but when the inspiring Spirit pronounces His awful anathema, it is leveled, not at the introducers of any one special error, or moral pravity, but at " any man who loves not the Lord Jesus Christ."

This is peculiarly solemn at all times; but specially so for the day in which our lot is cast, when the Person and glory of Christ are so little thought of or cared for. A man may actually blaspheme Christ, deny His deity or His eternal Sonship, and yet be received into professing christian circles, and allowed to preside at so-called religious meetings. Surely all this must be dreadful in the sight of God, whose purpose it is " that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father;'' and that every knee should bow, and every tongue confess to Jesus as Lord of all. God is jealous for the honor of His Son; and the man that neglects, rejects, and blasphemes that blessed One will yet have to learn and own the eternal justice of that most solemn decree, " If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha."

How momentous, therefore, the question put by our Lord Christ to His disciples, " Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" Alas, alas! "men" knew nothing, cared nothing about Him. They knew neither who He was, what He was, nor whence He was. " Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets." In a word, there was endless speculation, because there was utter indifference and thorough heartlessness. The human heart has not so much as a single true thought about Christ, not one atom of affection for Him. Such is the awful condition of the very best of men until renewed by divine grace. They know not, they love not, they care not for the Son of God—the Beloved of the Father's heart—the Man on the throne of heaven's majesty. Such is their moral condition, and hence their every thought, word, and act is contrary to God. They have not a single feeling in common with God, for the most distinct of all reasons, that the One who is everything to Him is nothing to them. Christ is God's standard, and everyone and everything must be measured by Him. The heart that does not love Christ has not a single pulsation in unison with the heart of God; and the life that does not spring from love to Christy however blameless, respectable, or splendid in the eyes of men, is a worthless, objectless, misspent life in the judgment of God.

But how truly -delightful to turn from all the heartlessness and indifference of " men," and hearken to the testimony of one who was taught of God to know and own who the Son of man was! " Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Here was the true answer. There was no vain speculation here, no uncertainty, no may be this, or may be that. It was divine testimony flowing from divinely given knowledge. It was not yea and nay, but yea and amen to the glory of God. We may rest fully assured that these glowing words of Simon Peter went up, like fragrant incense, to the throne of God, and refreshed the heart of the One who sat there. There is nothing in all the world so precious to God as a heart that, in any measure, appreciates Christ. Let us never forget this!

" And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Here we have the very first direct allusion to the church, or assembly of Christ; and the reader will note that our Lord speaks of it as yet future. He says, " I will build my church." He was the rock, the living stone, the divine foundation; but ere a single stone could be built on Him, He must die.

This is a grand cardinal truth of Christianity—a truth which our apostle had yet to learn, notwithstanding his brilliant and beautiful confession. Simon Peter was not yet prepared for the profound mystery of the cross. He loved Christ, and he had been taught of God to own Him in a very full and blessed manner; but he had yet much to learn ere he could take in the soul-subduing truth that this blessed Son of the living God must die, ere even he, as a living stone, could be built upon Him. "From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day."

Here the solemn truth begins to break through the clouds. But Simon Peter is not prepared for it. It withered up all his Jewish hopes and earthly expectations. What! The Son of the living God must die! How could it be? The glorious Messiah be nailed to a cross! " Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee (or pity thyself), Lord, this shall not be unto thee/'

Such is man! Such was even Simon Peter! He would fain turn the blessed Lord away from the cross! He would, in his ignorance, frustrate the eternal counsels of God, and play into the hands of the devil! Poor Peter! What a rock he would be for the church to be built upon! " The Lord turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offense unto me; for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.'

Withering words! Who would have thought that " Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona," should so speedily be followed by, " Get thee behind me, Satan?"

The Mackintosh Treasury: Vol. 4

The Mackintosh Treasury: The Miscellaneous Writings [Hardback]

Table of Contents

Glad Tidings: Part 4

Glad Tidings: Part 3

Glad Tidings: Part 1

Glad Tidings: Part 2

Glad Tidings: Part 5

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 1

Great Commission: Part 5

Great Commission: Part 2

Great Commission: Part 3

Great Commission: Part 8

Great Commission: Part 1

Great Commission: Part 6

Great Commission: Part 7

Great Commission: Part 4

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 2

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 5

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 6

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 3

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 4

The Ministry of Reconciliation: Part 7

Conversion: What Is It? Part 4

Conversion: What Is It? Part 5

Conversion: What Is It? Part 8

Conversion: What Is It? Part 2

Conversion: What Is It? Part 6

Conversion: What Is It? Part 7

Conversion: What Is It? Part 1

Conversion: What Is It? Part 3

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 5

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 2

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 8

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 9

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 1

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 6

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 7

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 10

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 3

Simon Peter: His Life and Its Lessons: Part 4